


Espérer

by consecrated



Series: A Thing With Feathers [2]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character(s) of Color, Codependency, Communication, Disabled Character, Drugs, F/M, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Asylum, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Reference to the comics, Slow Burn, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-01-05 13:57:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12191271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consecrated/pseuds/consecrated
Summary: Miles stumbles through the door of Waylon Park's life, and together they get a taste of what hope might really mean. Recovery and remedy comes from a manuscript detailing the events of Mount Massive, a French Spanish Sparrow, a tiny secluded Arizona motel, and a series of conversations occurring in and around a bathtub."He didn’t know if it was a sick masochism that made him long to learn about Miles Upshur, or if it was a hunger to expose Murkoff for all it’d done, or the desire to immortalize the only other surviving account of the second ever Mount Massive massacre. The only defining thing was that he didwantto know. Hunger, yearn, desire, it was there, and as Waylon sat at his desk and stared at the document on the screen of his laptop, he began scrolling back up to the beginning."✶Sequel to Peur, references sexual assault themes. Not necessary to have read to understand.





	1. Red Jeep, Red Bathtub

The first thing Waylon noticed was that the man seemed terribly familiar. He was deja vu, a ghost, an almost forgotten memory. At first, he couldn’t place him at all though. It was an instincts memory, a soul memory, not a mind memory. It wasn’t his face that was familiar, he was sure he’d never seen those sharp black eyes or that messy dark hair or that strong stubbled jaw before -- it was his aura, his posture, terribly familiar.

“Have we met?”

The man stared at him, maybe through him, “My jeep.”

“P- Pardon?”

“You stole my jeep.”

Waylon blinked, the cold doorknob suddenly biting at his hand, “Your jeep…”

The red jeep wrangler was just a few feet away from the entrance to the motel door, a fiery danger colour coded reminder of Mount Massive and the horrors he endured there. He knew of course that it must have belonged to someone, even as he climbed in and tore away from the asylum like the bats of hell were nipping his heels. Waylon had always been a safe and defensive driver until that morning in Colorado. He’d driven so fast he could physically feel every turn and bump that could send him careening into the ditch with just the wrong twitch of his hands on the steering wheel, but even with the wind whipping at his windows as he sped down the highway he had been very aware that he was riding in a stolen vehicle.

With everything Mount Massive took from Waylon, at the time he hadn’t cared about stealing something back.

Standing before this stranger, though, his hands shook harder than they had at the wheel.

The man continued to stare blankly. His own hands were shoved into the pockets of his filthy jeans, “I want it back.” He finally stated.

Something about the man shifted, quite literally. A shift in that aura that surrounded him -- Waylon had never believed in such things, but that was the only way he could describe it, and after Mount Massive, he had less rigid ideas about reality and what was possible -- like a glitch in the hazy fog of energy enveloping him, just for half a second, digital, static. Barely noticeable, not something seen by the eye, but felt. Something noticed by his instincts, his soul, not his eyes.

Waylon paused for a long while, “I’m sorry I- I’m just surprised. How did you find me?”

“I followed you.” A shift again, this time his weight from foot to foot, “I want my jeep back.”

“It’s been… months since I- I took it.”

“I walked.”

‘ _He walked?’_ Waylon wondered if the man had been an asylum patient, he didn’t have the appearance of a variant though, perhaps a fellow employee subjected to the Engine? The man’s words didn’t make sense, and his eyes either moved around with a fervent mania like a hunted creature, or stared blankly like a corpse. Waylon himself had exhibited similar behaviours in the months after Mount Massive, even just earlier that day he’d had a panic attack and flinched with darting eyes at every slight sound.

“You didn’t walk.”

“I didn’t have my fucking jeep.”

His eyes weren’t black. Waylon had thought they were, he had noted specifically that they were remarkably dark for his skintone, but now he realized they were in fact an olive green. It might have been a trick of the light, but the man had stood under the same bright lamp for the entire conversation. Waylon blinked.

“Who are you, exactly?” He asked, looking at his attire for a name badge or patient number. The man wore a brown leather jacket over a very blood stained button up shirt. The blood was dry and dark, almost mistaken for mud, but Waylon had seen enough to know exactly what it was.

“Miles.”

That name was familiar.

“My name’s Waylon.” Then he paused, biting the inside of his mouth.

He hadn’t meant to give his name, for all he knew the man really was a Murkoff employee. He was already clearly connected to Mount Massive. For some reason it just slipped out, and Waylon had barely managed to keep from giving his old surname as well.

Miles didn’t react, barely even looked like he was listening. Instead his head was tilted and his eyes trailed from the door back to the jeep parked next to them.

Right, the jeep.

“I’m sorry, for-” Waylon swallowed, “taking your car, uh, it saved my life though. So thank you.”

Miles didn’t reply, but removed one hand from his pocket and extended it.

His first thought was that the strange man was looking for a handshake. The next was actually a lack of thought, mind blank while Waylon stared at the missing index finger, who’s stump was raggedly healed and streaked with bumpy keloidal scar tissue. The third thought was that Miles was looking past him through the door, at the small side table on top of which sat a set of keys.

“O- Oh.” Waylon quickly grabbed the keys and tentatively handed them over, still unconsciously staring at the missing finger. He was careful not to touch him. “Why were you there? Why were you at--” He couldn’t say the name.

“I’m a reporter.” Miles’ voice was hoarse yet strong, blunt, alive sounding, but his eyes were unfocused and drifting.

A bolt of panic made Waylon’s head spin. An email address, such a simple, forgettable thing. He hadn’t even been completely certain the email had been properly sent before Blaire destroyed the laptop, before reality split open and hell spilled out. Maybe he’d misspelled the email address. Maybe it’d bounced back. Even if sent, he’d figured the reporter hadn’t gotten a chance to follow up before the whole area was locked down, hoped he hadn’t, prayed he hadn’t.

“I see.” He didn’t know what to say. What could he say, now that the man’s identity was revealed but to Miles, his own was unknown? There was no way he could know Waylon was the whistleblower. Waylon was just some guy who stole his jeep, who’d been there, in that place --

“Do you have any food?”

Waylon flinched, “Are y-you hungry?”

Miles stared through him, not moving, “Do you or do you not have food?”

“Yes, y-you’re welcome to c-come in…” Waylon hesitantly opened the door further, slowly unlatching the deadbolt and swinging it all the way and stepping aside.

“Are you scared of me?” There was a ghost of a smirk on Miles’ lips.

“No.” Miles could kill him if he wanted, Waylon didn’t care. It was a sudden realization, sharp and bullet-like through his head, but he was at peace with it. It was what he deserved. If the man wanted to take revenge on Waylon, so be it -- Upshur had been an unknowing outsider dragged into Murkoff’s murky cesspool of cruelty and trauma, Waylon had brought Miles Upshur to the asylum.

“Your stutter.”

“Oh, it just happens s-sometimes.” He had made it out of Mount Massive alive. A stutter and a limp when it was raining was nothing compared to freedom and the feeling of sun on his face. The taste of blood was almost out of his mouth, half a year later, he would accept a stutter of a tongue and teeth.

Finally, as Waylon was distracted with his own thoughts, Miles walked across the threshold. His movements were jerky and mechanical, and Waylon was forced back to reality as he watched the visitor venture further into the dingy motel room, making a bee-line for the mini fridge. The whole room couldn’t have been much more than two hundred square feet, but watching Miles walk across it hurt with sympathetic pain. The man’s knees seem to bend on squeaky hinges.

Miles cracked open a pack of lunch meat, revealing that his other hand was equally mangled, and began cramming slices of cold cut ham into his mouth.

“I have bread too, a-and cheese, you could make a sandwich.”

Miles shook his head, taking another large bite.

He did look peaked and haggard, Waylon wondered how he’d been for food and water. Of course he certainly still didn’t believe that Miles had walked all the way to Arizona, but there was no doubt the reporter had been on the run and possibly without supplies.

While Miles ate, Waylon grabbed a glass and filled it with water, pouring in a pack of vitamin powder to dissolve. He waited for Miles to pause between bites to hand over the glass.

Unlike with the keys, he accidentally let his thumb graze the rough, dirty skin of Miles’ palm, and flinched back at the sudden sharp pain as if he had been bitten. Sharp stabs to his flesh, too real to ever be psychological, and red pinpricks left on his skin confirmed it.

“Sorry.” Miles mumbled around his food, still digging through the fridge.

“What- what was that.”

“Haven’t been touched in months. It got startled.”

“It?”

Miles shrugged, unwrapping a slice of processed cheese, shoving it unceremoniously in his mouth, “You’re lucky, the last person who touched me was killed.”

It didn’t feel like a threat, and while the man made it clear he wasn’t going to elaborate, Waylon’s mind worked over the puzzle his subconscious had already long solved.

When Miles finally stood up from his crouched position at the mini fridge, a few more pieces fell into place. The stance, the look of a broken puppet being held up by a force other than their own -- he’d seen that before. He’d seen this man before, this man he’d damned by summoning him to hell. At the entrance, the gate, covered by an unholy cloud -- a word, a voice, a spirit, a demon --

Waylon had told himself long ago that he was done uncovering truths from mysteries, that his inquisitive spirit was dead. Wasn’t that why he’d spent the last couple months living out of a motel room, writing up everything he already knew? Waylon had immediately uprooted his family after leaking his footage and spent months moving around the country before finally settling them down in Sacramento, with the assistance of a Leaks organization and the police. Now, holed up in a motel in the desert, away from his family and away from the rest of the world, he gazed at this stranger at his fridge.

This stranger who he’d in fact met before, only the briefest encounter, and yet it was the last time Waylon had brushed with death.

But Waylon was done with curiosity. He didn’t want to know.

He’d been here, writing, relaying the truths already now known to him, whether he wanted them or not. Instead of seeking out more knowledge, he regurgitated his memories into a manuscript, detailing everything he could write about Mount Massive, as much as he could without ending the novel with a suicide, everything that his video didn’t show the world, all the documents, all his thoughts, everything.

He didn’t want to learn more. He didn’t want to know more.

So staring at this man, at Miles, at the reporter, he tried to forget the image of him standing outside the asylum doors cloaked in a dark cloud known as -- known as -- known as --

“You can sleep here tonight if you want.” Again, he spoke without thinking.

Mile quirked an eyebrow, glancing at the one bed, “I’ll pass. I don’t sleep much.”

“Where are you going after this?”

“I’ve got my jeep back.” He shrugged, but his voice had lost some of its strength and certainty. It was a non answer.  

“Stay awhile.” After leaving the asylum, all he’d had were his memories and his limp. Everything else seemed to fade into a horrible dream that only got brought up in therapy, flashbacks, and nightmares. This was a concrete piece of his past, this man was a true and unavoidable connection to Mount Massive and Waylon should hate him, should want him as far away as possible, but he didn’t.

“I can’t.” Miles headed for the door, “It needs its space.”

“Stay.”

Waylon had never been a forceful person. His wife was the one who talked to realtors and bankers and the power company, his timid nature screwed him over at countless job interviews, and his own sons could trick and manipulate him into doing whatever they wanted.

Maybe Mount Massive had changed him. Maybe Miles the reporter was more important to him than he’d thought. Maybe he was tired of being alone.

“You’ve seen what it can do.”

“You saved my life.” Waylon didn’t know much about the Walrider. He didn’t need to. The carnage, the horror, that was enough. He’d been a man who didn’t believe in ghosts or auras or spirits, and he didn’t know what he believed the Walrider was, but he’d seen enough.

He didn’t care. “Stay please.”

Miles turned back to him, his eyes were dark, black. The aura, the Walrider, was hovering around him like static. He was terrifying, even more so now that Waylon knew what that buzzing energy surrounding him was even without a concrete definition. And Waylon wanted him to stay.

“Ok.”

 

* * *

 

Miles watched Waylon Park putter around the room.

He’d been offered access to the shower and a spare set of clothes, but he’d declined. He knew he smelled beyond wretched, he knew he smelled like gore and dirt and decay. It’d been so long, so long since he’d been clean or worn clothes other than the ones he’d died in -- _you aren’t dead --_ he didn’t know if he would survive trying to be a real person who wore clean clothes that weren’t tattered and bloodstained.

“Have you been… wearing those clothes since...?” Waylon had asked, to which Miles decided not to reply. His skin was covered in sores and infections, let alone the open wounds that took so long to heal they’d at one point started to grow septic and gangrenous, the only reason he hadn’t died of his own filth was almost certainly simply because the Walrider needed a host.

Now his severed fingers had finally lost the black, wet rot of sickness and begun regrowing skin over the stumps. His side wound had ceased being a pit of infection, now instead an annoying stiff slab of scar tissue filling in the space. He was healing. He was becoming alive again, through the power of something not quite alive and not quite healing.

Miles could feel the hum constantly, threateningly. Whether it was nano technology, an ancient spirit, or both -- it was an integral part of him now, and he figured it was possible he’d be stuck with the Walrider until death do them part, however and whenever death would come.

Things were becoming less concrete, less certain, even death was something Miles was no longer sure about. He’d seen so many things, Nazi scientists who should surely have been dead, bastard crossings between science and supernatural, and now, body infested with a technology spirit that seemed to both be killing him from the inside while mending the flesh of himself, Miles wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

“You can have the bed--”

“I don’t need it.”

“The couch by the desk is actually quite comfortable, I- I’ve slept there before--”

“I don’t need it.” Miles stared hard at the nervous man, then took a large bite of the sandwich Waylon had eventually convinced him to make, “I don’t sleep much.”

“I’m sorry for even just assuming you would be spending the night, but it’d mean a lot to me if you’d stay awhile.”

“If you’re trying to hit on me, you’re going to have to be more suave than that.” He joked, but it sounded raw in his throat. Waylon stared at him in confusion.

“Pardon?”

Miles rolled his eyes, taking the last bite of his sandwich, wincing as peppered mayo smeared across the stump of his finger,  “The cute-dumb thing doesn’t do it for me either, sorry.”

“I- I’m--”

“I’m just fucking around with you. Do you have anymore bread?”

The man’s small eyes were incredibly expressive, conveying the tumultuous and chaotic thoughts in Waylon’s mind. Miles got an almost nostalgic satisfaction out of riling him up and confusing him, a taste of what life used to be like. A taste of who Miles used to be.

Days spent bantering with journalistic colleagues, instigating pissing contests, being a ‘jackass with a heart of gold’ as one of his ex-girlfriends used to say.

He’d never had the personality for commitment, nowadays she’d probably say heart of coal, or in fact, nowadays she probably thought he was dead.

For a split second he wondered what the world thought had happened to Miles Upshur. Maybe it hadn’t even noticed his disappearance. In the past, he’d gone longer than a year without speaking his mother, and he’d hardly had a backlog of work that would have people contacting him. It was very possible no one noticed the absence of the wayward reporter aside from his landlord with a stack of unpaid bills. 

He really might as well be dead.

“Here.” Waylon shoved a bag of a half loaf of bread into his hands, “I was saving this for garlic bread on the fire pit outside, but you can have it.”

“Pretty fancy life you’re living out here in the boondocks.” Miles coughed, reaching into the bag, “Hiding from Murkoff?”

“Sorta.” He noticed the man flinch at the name, and didn’t blame him.

The stinging of his still only freshly healed finger continued to grow worse as Miles tried to ignore it, still clumsy in holding things without rubbing against the raw nub of skin covered bone. The peppered mayo had irritated the scabbed over places around the center of the amputation on his right hand and it was like a sore tooth, constantly pulling his attention.

Sensing Miles unrest, the Walrider began humming with energy.

‘ _God, lest I get a fucking paper cut and this thing kill someone.’_

“Are you ok?” Waylon asked, nearing.

“Stay back.” Miles shrugged noncommittally as he took a hearty bite of a plain piece of italian bread.

“Is it the--”

“My finger just hurts and it’s making it antsy.”

“Your--”

“My finger, yes, one of the two you keep staring at.”

“I’d appreciate it if you s-stopped interrupting me.” Waylon stated loudly, giving him an annoyed glance, “Would you like some ice or something for it?”

“It doesn’t--”

“Or perhaps _washing_ it may help?” Waylon interrupted, “How about before you finish off the last of my bread, you take a quick shower and I can almost guarantee you’ll start feeling better.”

Miles glared at him, but Waylon stared defiantly back.

The thought of being left alone with his own naked body terrified him.

- _static, buzzing, humming, static - crack -_ “Is that an order? Do I really smell that bad?”

He did smell that bad. Miles actually had a considerable respect for Waylon, for how long he’d been able to stand his stench in the small room insofar. Then again, the man had witnessed the hell of Mount Massive, which would force a strong stomach and will.

“If my guilting you will get you into the shower, then yes, you smell quite bad.”

“There are easier ways to get me into a shower.” Miles winked with a leer, but the flirting didn’t make him feel more confident or powerful like it used to back in the days when life was simpler. Instead, it just made him feel more hollow.

“Please?” Waylon asked simply, and if there was anything more attractive or calming to Miles these days, it was things being simple. Simplifying his request into one word, please.

"Fine.” Sighing as he stood on aching knees, almost gasping at the sudden pain in his gut. He’d forgotten what it was like to feel comfortable, sitting for so long, resting. It made all the aches of moving his decrepit body all more sharp in his mind that had spent months trying to dull it.

“Are you ok?”

“Again with that?” Miles grunted, holding his stomach in an attempt to ease the dull throbbing. The bullet wounds had long closed over, the Walrider’s energy stitching his flesh back together, but it couldn’t turn off those nerves that sent constant warnings to his brain of the foreign bullets still lodged in his body. The Walrider didn’t force him to live, it forced him to constantly be dying, stuck in the limbo of healed over death.

“Miles?”

“What?”

“I asked you if you were--”

“Ok? Yes, I’m ok.” He snapped, rounding on the shorter man, teeth gritted, “I fucking--”

The look in Waylon’s eye cut him off, the sudden sharp fear and panic flashing across his face as he backed up sharply from Miles.

Eyes wide and distant, watching a scene play out that had long ended, stuck on loop, Miles knew what flashback felt like, but he’d never seen one happen himself. It was curious to watch, to know what he himself must look like when his mind started to forget the distinction between reality and memory.

“Yo, Waylon…” Miles had never seen someone else have a flashback, nor had comforted anyone suffering one before, or he himself be comforted. “It’s ok, you’re ok.”

Waylon didn’t move, chest heaving, eyes roving across the room as he back up until he hit the wall. Miles didn’t try to follow after him, but kept at a distance and tried to look non-threatening, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I- sorry, yes…” Waylon blinked, it was over quickly, breaking out of the stupor with a shaky breath, “S-Sorry, I didn’t...”

As Waylon trailed off, he turned and began heading for the kitchenette on wobbly legs, limping slightly. Miles followed after slowly, maintaining his distance, “Are you gonna be alright?”

“Yes, yes, I-I’m ok, it was mild, s-sorry just don’t suddenly move or shout like that i-it makes me…” Waylon swallowed thickly, “It just… gets to me.”

“Yeah…” Standing dumbly, slipping his hands into his pockets, Miles exhaled slowly, “Don’t, uh, don’t apologize for shit like that, I’m-- uh, I’m gonna take that shower now.”

Words were ready to come out, but sticking to the roof of his dry mouth. He wasn’t sure what exact order the words wanted to go in, or how they should sound, so he swallowed them down and turned away from the shaking man leaning against the counter.

His gut hurt.

 

* * *

 

The sounds of water running in the bathroom gave Waylon a sense of grounding as he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He wondered what it must feel like to peel off clothes you’ve been wearing for that long, to clean off the blood that’s been on your body for months.

Miles will must surely feel like a new person after this.

Waylon knew from experience that the feeling wears off. A few minutes after your first shower, you realize you can still almost feel the blood on your skin. A few hours after your first big breakfast, you're vomiting in the toilet because everything smells like cooking human flesh. A few nights after your first full sleep without nightmares, you’ll wake up screaming until you lose your voice. New life gets peppered with reminders that this life is the same life, the same one you had when you were in that place.

With the blood, the guts, the cannibals, the Groom…

The Groom.

‘ _Focus on the sounds of the shower.’_ He thought to himself, listening to the constant beating of water on tile. The fact that Miles was nearby was comforting, not quite as much as Lisa, but despite his being a reminder of _that place_ , he was also a reminder he was no longer there.

Neither of them were. They’d survived.

As he listened and focused on his breathing, trying to maintain a steady rhythm, he noticed the sounds of the shower were a little _too_ uniform. There was no sounds of splashing or of body moving under the stream of water, and Miles had been in there for a good fifteen minutes already.

Leg sore, Waylon carefully rose to a sitting position and eased his feet to the floor, taking a few delicate steps towards the bathroom door. “Miles?”

No response.

Nearing, he could hear a steady hum like from an electric razor, but it similarly was too steady. He knew deep down it was the sound of the Walrider, faint enough though that he felt comfortable in knocking twice against the door, “Miles?”

With still no response, he banged hard enough that even the neighbours would hear it, and then tried the knob. It was unlocked, and he slowly opened it a crack while calling out the reporter’s name again.

When Waylon entered the room, Miles looked up from where he sat in the bathtub, still wearing his clothes now drenched under the stream of the shower.

“Isn’t this what people do when they have a mental breakdown?” He rasped, staring at the pink and brown streams of dried blood getting washed down the drain.

“I suppose.” Waylon frowned, speaking slowly, “Are you… having a mental breakdown?”

The man in the bathtub shrugged, “I can’t take my clothes off.”

“Ok.”

Miles frowned, glancing at him, then returning his gaze to the bottom of the bathtub, “I don’t think my body belongs to me anymore.”

Waylon couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be the Walrider’s host, he barely understood the fundamentals of what the Walrider _was_. To him, it was the terrifying shadow he’d seen at Mount Massive, the writhing with a stippled body made up of a constantly moving and changing mass of particles, and that’s just what it looked like, what it _was_ was something else all together. The Walrider Delusion, Wernicke’s fairytale, but the concrete evidence of it sat right in Waylon’s bathtub whose face was lifeless while he was surrounded by energy. Even though the Walrider had yet to manifest, Waylon could still feel it’s presence surrounding Upshur’s curled up form.

“Are you cold?”

“Can’t feel it.”

Waylon reached across, careful not to startle him, and turned the shower off, “I don’t think this is helping you right now.”

“I’m supposed to be having a breakdown, Park. I can’t have a breakdown without--”

“H-how’d you know my name?” Waylon cut him off, freezing with his hand still on the shower knob, “I never said my surname.”

“I told you, I followed you.”

“You said you walked.”

“It doesn’t take half a year to walk from Colarado to California to Arizona. I’ve been following you. It was interested in you, and I wanted my jeep back.”

“It?”

Miles twirled his finger in the air, gesturing the aura of energy humming around him.

“Is the Walrider the reason you can’t take a shower?”

“I think I lost ownership of my body long before Wernicke’s pet sunk it’s teeth in me.” Miles slowly uncurled himself, finally seeming to fully notice his drenched clothes, “Fuck.”

“Do you think you can h-handle quickly changing into some other clothes? You can work your way up to taking a shower some other time.” Waylon understood the dislike of being naked. Even when he was young, growing up Korean-American, he’d been extremely self conscious about his slight and slender body until he bulked up later in life. After Mount Massive, after the Groom, he found he’d reverted back to that fear of his own nudity.

“I don’t know.” Miles spoke simply and honestly. He truly looked lost, and Waylon wondered if this was the first time the man had needed to confront his own abilities to function normally post Mount Massive. Waylon still doubted his story about trekking across the country after him, but believed he’d been truthful about how he’d spent the last half year, aimless searching for that Jeep that’d sped away.

“I’ll get you some clothes. You’re a bit taller than me, but they shouldn’t fit too bad. S-sit tight.”

Miles didn’t move as Waylon darted out of the bathroom as fast as his stiff leg could carry him. He’d always had a nurturing nature, taking paternity leave when each of his sons were born, helping to raise his siblings when he was a child. After Mount Massive, Waylon had also spent enough time being the victim in need of comfort to know when someone shouldn't be left alone with their thoughts.

Grasping his largest hoodie and a pair of baggy sweatpants from the motel dresser by the tv, he returned to the bathroom and stared down at Miles who was now laying flat on the bottom of the tub, gazing up at the ceiling not unlike Waylon had been mere minutes ago.

“What are you doing here, Park?” Miles asked, voice hoarse.

“I got you some clothes--”

“I meant in Arizona.” He coughed, but didn’t move from where he lay soggily, “I’ve been following you a long time. What are you doing out here?”

“I’m…” Waylon considered the question. He was writing his book, regurgitating his story into word form. Unwilling to face a life beyond Mount Massive, but also unwilling to push any further into hell than he’d already dipped his toe into. “I’m not sure.”

“Why did you ask me to stay?”

Waylon set the clothes on the nearby toilet and shrugged, “I’m not sure.”

“You aren’t at all curious as to what fate befell the person you invited to Mount Massive? You don’t want to ask me at all?”

Waylon stared, throat closing up like an anaphylactic reaction to Miles’ words, “Y- You know?”

“Of course I fucking know. I’m an investigative reporter who’s been tracking you for half a year while possessed by a supernatural technology spirit.” He gave a dry smile, “By the by, mutemail isn’t as secure as you think it is.”

“And you haven’t killed me?”

Waylon felt a sudden thousand tiny pinpricks across his skin, not enough to quite hurt, just an itchy tingling all over his body. He knew without a doubt that he’d been surrounded by the Walrider, though he couldn’t yet see it. He remained motionless as then, slowly, those nanobots began to swarm thicker until the hazy outline of a figure could be seen standing a nose length away.

He felt no fear. Facing death and surviving the asylum, he’d made it back to Lisa once. If he was to be taken from his family, he’d rather it not be Murkoff, but this creature Murkoff created.

The Walrider. Miles Upshur.

“We could kill you in an instant.”

“I know.”

Then the Walrider was gone, or as gone as it ever was, quietly humming under the surface. Miles looked up at Waylon, and his eyes were clear and green, “I’m an investigative reporter, Park. And you’re a Whistleblower. Murkoff did this, not you.”

It took a second to unravel that statement, and when Waylon did, he found that maybe, possibly, he understood Miles Upshur a little better. At the very least, if he thought he was brave before for having survived, he respected him even more now, “You don’t hate me?”

“Don’t push your luck.” Waylon couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but didn’t rather care either way, “Again though, are you curious? Is that why you asked me to stay?”

Waylon didn’t want to learn. His curiosity was dead. He didn’t want to know, he didn’t want to know. “When I found out who y-you were, I realized how important you are to me.” Survivors.

“Is that so?”

‘ _I want to know.’_

“No, I.. and I-I felt like I owed it to you. T-to give you a place to stay awhile.”

‘ _What did I do to you.’_

“Thanks.”

Waylon winced hard and turned, grabbing the clothes off the toilet, “Here. See if you can get these on.”

Miles slowly rose with the sound of water dripping heavily off him, and he looked Waylon in the eye. He didn’t say anything, but watched as the shorter man made his way out of the bathroom and shut the door, Waylon could feel those green eyes bore into his back.

He didn’t know if it was a sick masochism that made him long to learn about Miles Upshur, or the hunger to expose Murkoff for all it’d done, or the desire to immortalize the only other surviving account of the second ever Mount Massive massacre. The only defining thing was that he did _want_ to know. Hunger, yearn, desire, it was there, and as Waylon sat at his desk and stared at the document on the screen of his laptop, he began scrolling back up to the beginning.

About three pages in, he’d briefly mentioned the altercation with Jeremy Blair after sending the email off. In this draft, he only stated that he’d in vain contacted a reporter in naive hopes of blowing the lid off Murkoff, which was the reason he’d been admitted to the asylum and subjected to the engine, before the riots broke loose and turned the place upside down.

Now, he slowly began typing, adding a new paragraph in.  

> _I contacted an investigative reporter named Miles Upshur._

He didn’t know whether he’d keep the man’s name in the book.

> _Unknown to me, he arrived at Mount Massive at my request._

As he typed, he began to realize more questions were brimming up. When exactly had Upshur arrived? What had Waylon been doing at the time? Had they run into the same variants? Had they been in the same areas?

He had to still his fingers and cease typing. Waylon was burning. It hurt. He didn’t want this. It was over, why dig? Why pick at the scab? It was over.

If it was over, he wouldn’t be writing the book in the first place.

It was never over.

‘ _I want it to be over.’_

_‘I want to know more.’_

The thing was, Miles Upshur stood for something Waylon had been seeking out for a long time: hope.

Mile Upshur was survival, shared experience, the cure to isolation and loneliness, the one person who understood, the one person who survived, hope, hope, Miles Upshur was hope and Waylon didn’t want it to be over.

He wanted to know more.

He wanted hope.


	2. Tick

There were no analogue clocks in the motel room, and yet Miles was driven mad by the incessant ticking. Waylon had left a half hour ago to get some groceries, insistent on making a proper meal for Miles before the night was over, so he was left alone with the sound.

First, he unplugged every electronic. The tv, the radio alarm clock, the telephone, the mini fridge, coffee maker, Park’s laptop, the hairdryer in the bathroom, everything.

The room should have been silent, but it wasn’t. The ticking continued. Next, he tore open every drawer and cabinet, of which there were few considering the room’s small size. Nothing was hidden from him here. But he found no wrist watches to blame.

As he stood, staring and listening in disbelief, the ticking stopped as covertly and unnoticeably as it’d started.

“Damn it.” He whispered, closing his eyes. Standing alone in the trashed motel room, Miles sighed. When he finally opened his eyes, to avoid looking at the mess he’d made, he stared up at the ceiling.  

It wasn’t often he was forced to confront the fact he was ruined. When he was following Park, he didn’t have to worry about being sane or healthy or stable, everything had been boiled down to the pain in his feet and the wind on his face as he walked with the Walrider as his only companion. Nothing had been real, therefore the pain and the memories and the obvious damage hadn’t been real either.

Now he was in a different setting. Gone were the dark empty roads he’d walked the last half year, now he was _inside._ He was in a building, he was wearing different clothes, he was a real person again.

Real and ruined.

The ticking had started again. He supposed he should clean up before Waylon got home, but it was easier to just stand and stare at the ceiling and ignore the panic and confusion bubbling like champagne in his throat and stomach.

A few minutes past. Miles wasn’t one for crying, never had been, and even now his eyes remained dry but he felt so ridiculous that if he’d been someone else, Waylon Park perhaps, he’d be crying from shame.

Reaching down, he grabbed a few of Park’s shirts off the ground and shoved them back into the dresser by the television.

“Good job.” He grunted, praising himself. Three shirts back where they belonged. Progress. He glanced back at the room and sighed again. It would take a bit of work before it looked anything remotely close to the state it’d been in before Waylon had left.

Briefly he considered trying to make the Walrider do it for him. He’d tested out his fragile control over the spectre in the past, but most of his influence seemed to be on an unconscious level. It didn’t often listen to direct commands.

“Yo, you there?” He murmured, and of course it was there, it didn’t need to respond for him to know that. The buzzing sensation just under his skin was unremitting, so much so that it had become almost unnoticeable unless he focused. It was always there though, watching, waiting. “Feel like cleaning up for me?”

He almost hoped it would manifest just to tell him off for making such a ridiculous request.

The room was silent, the air undisturbed.

Miles bent down and shoved some more clothes in the dresser, ignoring the dull ache in his gut. His relationship with pain had become quite similar to his relationship with the Walrider, always there, having become a part of him, almost unnoticeable until something drew it out.

“Whiny bitch.” He muttered to himself, cramming a pair of jeans into an already filled drawer. Park had too many clothes.

The ticking continued. He forced himself to ignore it, hands shaking as he piled up the loose papers he’d flung from the desk. It was growing louder.

Miles shot upright and hurried over to the bed, plugging in the radio clock and turning the dial as high as it would go before turning it on, letting a heavy rock song fill the air and suffocate all other sounds.

He knelt there beside the radio for a good three minutes, breathing heavily with one hand resting on the device. The faint electric hum of the machine was familiar and almost comforting.

The motel room was still in shambles, but he could no longer bring himself to care. Instead he let the music fill him, it’d been a long time since he’d sat and just listened to a song.

A lifetime ago.

Miles sat on the floor and leaned back against the bed, closing his eyes. The song changed, now the steady thrum of drums and a bass guitar beat in his chest. The vocals were raw and raspy, bordering on metal. It almost hurt to listen to. He liked it.

Chest now rising and falling steadily, lungs no longer struggling quite so much, he let the tension drain from his body. He revelled in this awful rock song and let it carry him away from the ticking and the silence and the ache.

‘ _Make you believe’_ -in me, was how the lyric went, but all he heard were those three words.

‘ _That’s what I’m here for, to make you believe.’_ A flash of metal. His hands were burning, throbbing, and he twisted them together, lost parts leaving slots that fit together and the pain hurt less if he pressed his hands together tight enough, he could make it stop.

The lyric repeated.

Miles’ limbs weren’t quite cooperating but he managed to make it to his feet, stumbling to the door and ignoring his old bloody shoes and unlocked it, stepping out barefoot.

The sudden and severe cold that hit him was blissful relief. It shocked everything from his system. His lungs expanding, filling with the frigid desert night air.

His jeep was gone.

Right, Park went for groceries.

Inhale, exhale.

He kind of wanted Park to come back.

Unnatural.

It’s good to be alone.

Shivering, he slipped out from under the light by the door and into the darkness, ignoring the sharp stabs of the cold gravel on his feet.

Miles’ feet began to tingle, and he glanced down, watching as thousands of tiny black specks began to hover just above his skin. “Yeah, I know. I’m an idiot.”

The nanobots almost seemed to caress him. He’d seen the Walrider do this before, when controlling his body or healing him. The cold seemed to ebb a little.

Not for the first time, he wished the Walrider would talk back. It seemed beyond it’s capabilities, sometimes he’d get vague impressions of crude and unrefined semblances of emotion -- usually irritation and anger, but that was all.

“You won’t help me clean up, but you’ll be my shoes?” He scoffed, shuffling down a dirt path behind the motel. Almost immediately the nanobots dispersed and the cold came back. “Oh, now you’re punishing me?”

“Hey man, you ok?” A voice called out and he flinched, looking up to see a three young guys sitting around a picnic bench under a decrepit looking willow tree. A sweet skunk smell drifted on the breeze.

“Uh, yeah.” He paused, watching a joint pass hands. “Don’t suppose I could get a hit off that?”

The guys glanced at each other and one shrugged, then the voice called out again, “Sure man.”

It’d been a long time. A lifetime.

“No shoes?” One of the men quirked an eyebrow. He was a dishevelled looking twenty-something, looking like no one who had the right to comment.

“Good for the sole.” He joked, accepting the joint, watching them watch his hands. Being so separate from civilization for so long, he hadn’t gotten a chance to get used to how people reacted to his hands.

Pinching the joint with his thumb and middle finger, he sucked in a deep hit, probably too deep for someone who hadn’t touched weed in a --  _lifetime_ , but he soldiered through the urge to hack up a lung.

“What happened to ya hands?” The guy who’d first spoke asked, still staring at the missing digits.

“Dog bite.” He took a second hit, then handed the joint back. It was almost amusing how careful the guy was not to touch his mutilated fingers.

“Oh yeah?”

“Bit the hand that fed it.” He shrugged.

“Huh.” The stoners were staring at him now.

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Miles figured he should keep walking, or go back to the motel room, but the second guy finally spoke up, “Didja put it down?”

Miles blinked, forgetting in the few seconds that had passed that they were talking about the made up dog, thinking only about Trager’s body hanging mangled from the elevator.

“Yeah.”

“Tsk. Guess you had to.”

“Guess so.”

The joint was offered back to him. He accepted.

“So you here on a trip?” The first guy asked, leaning against the bench lazily.

“Sorta.”

“Sorta?”

‘ _Does it count as a trip if it never ends? If it never started?’_ he thought as he smoked, the feeling of the joint in his hand made him remember how much he missed cigarettes. ‘ _If I have no purpose or place to return?’_

He could go home, he supposed. Back to D.C, check to see what parts of his life were still intact. The thought made him feel nauseous though, like picking through and looting a corpse to find something of value.

“I’m here… visiting a friend.” He cleared his throat with a cough.

“We’re from Dallas, on a road trip. Just graduated P.U.” Two of them high fived.

“Gonna be the best damn chiropractors in the south.”

Miles barked out a laugh, feeling something lift off his shoulders, some cage around his head being dismantled by weed and normalcy. These naive stoned junior chiropractors had suddenly reminded him of what the world used to be before Mount Massive, simple, understandable. Sure, he’d seen shitty terrible things as a journalist, but at least he’d been a journalist. He’d been something, had an apartment, a job, a life. Which was sad, looking at what he had now, but...

These three didn’t make him sad. Maybe it was the aforementioned weed, but when they invited him to come sit down with them and take a load of his soles and his soul, he accepted.

 

* * *

 

Waylon shivered as he stepped out of the jeep with an armful of groceries. He still hadn’t quite gotten used to how quickly it grew cold come nightfall.

The sound of blaring music was coming from the motel room, but as Waylon reached to open the door, he noticed with a frown that it already was. Only by a crack, but still, he’d been certain he’d shut it firmly behind him and locked it.

Had Miles left?

That left him more panicked that he’d thought it would. He quickly shoved the door open and was met with something that caused even more rising alarm.

The entire room was in a disarray, clothes strewn across the floor, papers littering the ground, like someone had been searching for something. And Miles was nowhere to be seen.

Murkoff?

His laptop was still there, along with his rough drafts. If that’s not what they wanted, then what? What had they been searching for? Had Miles done this, not Murkoff? Was Miles not who he thought he was?

Too many questions. He forced himself to calm down, limping across the room. Only then did he notice Miles shoes still at the door, which did nothing to ease his calm, only to cross Miles being a turncoat off his list.

He shut the radio off, only to find the silence more overwhelming than the music had been. Waylon quickly turned it back on, but lowered the volume to something bearable.

He was struck by how powerless he was. If something had happened, there was literally nothing he could do. He had no way of contacting Miles, no way of looking for him, no one to go to for answers.

The only thing Waylon could do was take a deep breath, and start cleaning. This was the only control he had. He could fix this broken room, put the items back in their proper place, shut the doors of the cabinet, hands shaking, trembling like mad.

It was while cleaning -- actually, while putting the groceries away in the fridge, that he noticed all the electronics were unplugged. That brought on only more questions, so he tried not to think about it. With a blank mind, he plugged the fridge back in, and began to cry.

Almost without thinking, he pulled his burner phone from his pocket and dialled. He didn’t expect it to be picked up quickly, Lisa didn’t keep her own burner phone on her person instead leaving it in the bedroom, but as it rang the tears only came faster.

He wasn’t sure what he’d say if she answered.

He didn’t even know why he was crying so hard.

He hung up.

Almost as soon as he did so, the door suddenly opened with a slamming sound normally reserved for a door being shut, as it banged against the wall.

Waylon whipped around only to see none other than Miles Upshur shivering in the doorway, bare feet, eyes bloodshot and from the stench wafting across the room _his_ weren’t red from crying.

“M-Miles!” Waylon carefully rose to his feet, staring at the man. He rubbed the wetness from his cheeks surreptitiously.  

“You cleaned.” Miles frowned, rubbing his dirty feet across the carpet.

“W-what happened? I came home and th-the place was a mess a-and-”

“There was a ticking.”

“A what?”

“A ticking sound.” He sniffed, shutting the door behind him, “Couldn’t find it.”

“Was this before or after you got blazed?” Waylon frowned, leaning against the fridge as he thigh gave a twinge of pain.

“After. No, before. I got stoned after. Went for a walk to clear my head, found a bunch of kids behind the motel.”

“In barefeet.”

“No, they had shoes.”

“Miles.” Waylon pinched the bridge in exasperation. It felt like talking to his youngest son, Leon. The panic had entirely ebbed away and been replaced by exhaustion and confusion. This hadn’t been what he’d expected to come home to, but then again, he couldn’t have any expectations these days. Not now, not here, not with Miles. “In anycase, crack a window. You’re stinking the room up.”

“Thanks for cleaning.” Miles muttered, looking slightly embarrassed,  “I uh, I started, but…”

“You had to clear your head.”

“Yeah.”

Waylon watched him move across the room to window, pushing it open, then retreating over to the bathroom, once again shutting the door behind him. Heaving a deep sigh, Waylon picked up the last few papers off the floor and returned them to the desk, sitting down and opening his laptop.

It was only at five percent. He’d forgotten to ask about the unplugged electronics, but he supposed it had to do with the mysterious ticking noise.

His leg gave a sharp jolt of pain as he bent over to plug the charger back in, wincing. It’d been stiff all evening, ever since Miles showed up on his doorstep a few hours ago. He’d been doing well pain-wise up until then, and hoped after he adjusted to Miles being in his life the pain would die down again. When he’d briefly stayed in Sacramento with his family, he’d attended some physiotherapy sessions that had loosened up the damaged muscles and kept it from stiffening up.

He thought about booking a massage, tapping out a quick google search. There had to be a parlour somewhere, the next town over was a bit of a tourist trap thought a bit of a trip to get to.

Waylon didn’t consider himself a tourist here in Arizona, more like a refugee or a runaway.

Water could be heard running from the bathroom sink, then the door was shoved open and Miles wandered out yawning.

“I-I was gonna make a dinner, but if you’re tired then I won’t keep you up.” Waylon glanced up from his laptop.

“Told you, not a big sleeper.” Miles frowned, “Also, I’m starved.”

“I bet you are.” He’d never been one to smoke cannabis, but he’d been to college. He knew what munchies were. Besides, for all he knew that sandwich earlier had been the first real food Miles had eaten in a long time, judging at least from how desperately he had eaten it. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, but I got macaroni and cheese and I thought I’d steam some broccoli. I make a really good cheese sauce.”

“You aren’t stuttering.”

Waylon blinked, “It comes and goes.”

“I really like mac n’ cheese.” Miles continued, as if he hadn’t said anything at all, “I used to make it all the time.”

“And broccoli?”

He paused, “Broccoli’s kinda gross. But if you smother it with cheese it’s bearable.”

“You’re like a ten year old.” Waylon sighed.

“Honey, you haven’t even seen my hotwheels collection yet.”

Laughing, he rose from his chair but grimaced as he put his weight on his right leg. Miles seemed to notice, green eyes following him as he carefully limped over to the coffeemaker.

“You ok?”

“Just my leg.” He winced, “I’m fine.”

“Need any help?”

Waylon shook his head, pulling the carafe out and turning to head to the bathroom, but Miles grabbed it from him. “Hey!”

“Let me.”

The way he said it left no room for argument. It was an order.

“You’re quite stubborn, aren’t you.” Waylon leaned back against the counter as Miles ran the tap, taking his weight off his leg.

“That’s what every boss I’ve ever had has told me.” Miles chuckled, “Those exact words.”

“Must be why you’re freelance.”

It had been that trait that had led Waylon to choose Upshur to email, out of all the other reporters he’d researched. The way he wrote, it was with a certain ambitious passion that the others had lacked. He’d found out that the man had been fired from NBB for writing about what he believed in, what he knew, what he saw, without a care what others thought.

Miles returned, and handed back the filled carafe. Waylon dumped the water into the reservoir and checked that the filter was empty, then retrieved the two travel cup macaroni packs from the bag.

“What are you doing?”

“How did you think I was going to make dinner? Do you see a microwave?” He began pouring the noodles into the carafe, returned it to the coffeemaker and turned it on.

“You’re pretty clever, aren’t you.”

“That’s something no boss has told me.”

“You’ve had shitty bosses.”

An awkward silence punctuated that statement, that understatement.

Working for Murkoff, seeing what people in power can and will do, had changed Waylon on a fundamental level. It changed him and the way he saw the world. “When y- you were a reporter… have you seen anything like M-Murkoff before?”

“Like Murkoff? Yes. Like Mount Massive, no.” Miles chewed on his lip, watching the boiling water drip into the carafe. “In the world, there’s a lot of dangerous and abusive corporations, organizations, people, what have you. I’ve just never seen… the things us reporters don’t get to see. Shouldn’t see. Shouldn’t happen.”

Waylon nodded, “I- I know what you mean.”

“Your stutter’s back.”

“It comes and gos.”

They made eye contact briefly, before Waylon turned away.

“Why do you want me to stay here?”

The question caught him off guard, as though he hadn’t been pondering it all evening. “I f-feel like I need you with me.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.”

They met each other's eyes once more, and Waylon swallowed. He wondered if he should tell him about the manuscript, but decided it wasn’t time yet. The time wasn’t right.

“I know about your little pet project.” Miles yawned, “Every middle aged person wants to write a novel.”

Waylon frowned, heart skipping a beat, “I-” He swallowed, “I’m only 34.”

Miles fixed him with an undecipherable stare, “Why would you want to write about that place.”

“You’re a reporter, don’t you have any urge to tell the world about what you saw?”

“I _used_ to be a reporter. Now I’m dead.” Miles bit out, “And no, I don’t.”

“I need to make it make sense, Miles. I- I need to understand. If I write it out, I can see it all, maybe I can understand.”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that. Besides, the world deserves to know about the horrific things these corporations are doing, and covering up.”

“Horrific things are always happening, Park. One stupid book isn’t going to change the world and it isn’t going to change you.”

Waylon flinched, then turned back to the coffeemaker. The water had completely covered the noodles so he turned it off and grabbed a paper plate from the drawer to rest on the top of the carafe to trap the steam and heat in.

“I- I need to make it real.”

Miles shook his head, “You’re the only one.”

 

* * *

 

The noodles were slightly stiff, but the broccoli Park had cooked afterwards was perfection. Usually Miles hated the vegetable, actually most vegetables, but it was tender and juicy and he was in heaven. Park had made a thick creamy cheese sauce with the coffee maker, and Miles scooped another spoonful out of the carafe on the bed stand and liberally dumped it over his already drenched plate.

“Careful, don’t get cheese on the sheets.” Waylon grumped from where he sat on the couch.

Miles had created a little nest at the head of the bed, revelling in the comfort of real blankets wrapped around himself. A little womb of safety.

“I’m not actually ten.” Miles shot back, secretly rubbing at a yellow stain on a nearby pillow with his sleeve. Hopefully they bleach the shit out of the bedding anyway.

The ticking had returned. He’d only just noticed it. It was subtle, but there, a constant and consistent ticking of clock hands. Park had turned the radio off when he finished cooking, and now the motel room had reverted back to it’s timebomb state.

As Waylon opened his mouth with a retort, Miles quickly shushed him and held up a finger, the one index finger he had left.

“Wait-- there, do you hear it? The ticking?”

“I-I don’t hear anything.” Waylon frowned, listening carefully.

“Nothing?”

“I’m sorry, Miles.” The shorter man shook his head, “I don’t hear anything.”

Well that wasn’t a good sign, though a mysterious ticking never was.

“I swear I’m not Captain Hook, I just…” Miles grit his teeth, “It’s there. I hear it.”

“Try not to worry about it. Finish your dinner.”

“I’m not very hungry anymore.” He glanced down at his half finished plate. Actually, he felt very tired. It was rare, he didn’t sleep often and usually his exhaustion went beyond tired into mania, but now wrapped up in blankets he felt suddenly very sleepy.

“Are you alright?” Waylon asked, “You look…”

“I’m just tired. I might… close my eyes for a moment. I can go on the couch if you want.”

“No, no, you look comfy there and I said earlier you can have the bed.”

“Ok.” Miles didn’t feel like arguing at that moment, all he wanted was to slide into darkness in the warmth of the bedding, where Murkoff and the Walrider didn’t exist.

“If you’re sure you’re ok.” He heard Waylon say, as he set his plate beside the carafe and let his eyes slide shut, “Goodnight Miles.”

He muttered something like ‘ _g’night_ ’, vocal chords slackening as sleep quickly overtook him. Heavily, deeply, Miles retreated into unconsciousness.

 

_“Mm, just like Michelle.” The voice whispered, “Delicious. I could eat you right up.”_

_He’d never felt such pain. Deep, heavy, paralyzing pain._

_Broken fingernails dug into his hips, cutting the skin, drawing blood, fingers bruising. Worse was the voice, murmuring softly and cruelly. He’d prefer silence, just the heaving of breaths and his own agonized cry, but_ _Trager's voice_ _was brutal and overpowering._

_He tried to ignore it, even tried to focus on the pain._

_Eventually, as his mind began to escape his body, he focused only on the clock on the wall, beyond the voice, listening to it’s soft ticking._

 


	3. Watching the Sun

Waylon wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, his meds tended to kick in half an hour after taking them so it couldn’t have been long after Miles had nodded off. When he woke, the alarm clock displayed a bright red ‘4:37am’ and the bed across the room was empty.

It was rare for him to wake so early naturally without a nightmare to jerk him to consciousness, and after a quick self assessment he found himself to feel calm and unrattled so he began searching for what disturbed him, figuring it must have been Miles.

The bed was empty and the bathroom door was closed, but no sounds came from within it.

“Miles?” He called out groggily.

No answer.

Waylon stiffly rose from the couch, rubbing his thigh as the muscle pulled tight. Dragging his feet stinging feet on the cold laminate floor, he tentatively knocked on the door, “You ok?”

“Just had to piss.” The man’s voice answered, raspy and hoarse. The door opened and Waylon found himself standing far too close to him, face shoved into Mile’s chest.

“Oh.” He stepped back, giving him some breathing room.

“Sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s fine, I like an early morning.” He smiled, “I-I p-probably won’t be going back to sleep. Would you mind if I was on my laptop?”

“I need your help.”

Waylon frowned, hesitating half way through turning away, “Oh?”

Miles didn’t seem a man who liked help. He was similar to Lisa, in that strong self-sufficient way. Even with his shoulders sagging and eyes half shut, Miles had an air of strength beneath that which fell limp and tired.

“I want to be clean. I can’t sleep.” Miles scratched at his neck, where dirt still caked on his skin under his clean clothes, “It itches.”

“How can I help?”

“If you’re not going back to sleep…  I know it’s fucking weird, but, distract me while I shower. You can sit outside the door.”

“Maybe you should try a bath instead.” Waylon bit his lip, not wanting to imply anything about Miles’ capabilities, but remembering the earlier shower disaster, “It’ll probably help to soak for a bit anyway.”

“But you’ll help?”

“Of course.” He blinked, “I’m glad you want to wash up.”

“I can still feel--” Miles cut himself off, frowning, “Put the radio on too.”

“Ok.” Waylon didn’t ask.

“I hate you a little bit. It was easier before I caught up to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Miles shrugged, turning back to stare into the bathroom, “It’s not your fault.”

‘ _I sent you there. I brought you there. I broke you.’_

Waylon turned and made his way over to the bed, pressing a button on the top of the alarm clock, soft rock rolling out a quiet tune. Things didn’t feel quite right. Early morning unease set in, those liminal hours where everything was surreal. The worst part was, the world and the situation actually was and were surreal. There was nothing mundane or natural about the person in the bathroom or his own mind or body, the time, the room, the state, the world-- surreal.

Real. Waylon sighed, ‘ _I’m real. You’re real. Let’s do this.’_

Over the music, he heard the sounds of the bath being drawn.

Yawning, Waylon stretched his leg and turned to approach the door again. It was halfway open, Miles leaning against the wall watching the water level rise in the tub.

‘ _I hate myself a little bit.’_

Waylon stood at the door, “There’s soap and shampoo and stuff on the shelf by the showerhead. Towels by the hair dryer.”

“Found em.”

“Ok.” He wanted to be able to help more. Save from actually bathing Miles himself, there wasn’t much more he could do. So he turning away, ripping his eyes from the man by the tub, and slowly lowered his weary achy body down to sit against the doorframe. “I know how hard it is. I got cleaned up at the hospital after I escaped, so I didn’t really get a true first shower, but it was still hard, after. Being naked and vulnerable.”

Miles didn’t say anything, reaching down to test the water’s temperature. It must have been satisfactory, because he didn’t adjust the knobs.

“I’m just saying, I understand. So if you need to talk… we can talk.”

“I don’t wanna talk about that. Talk, but not… not about that.”

“About what then?”

“Anything.”

Waylon nodded, running his fingers through his hair. It was getting greasy, he was due for a shower himself. ‘ _In the morning.’_ He thought, the real morning, not whatever this was. This night-morning unreality. “I’m gonna call Lisa tomorrow. Today, I mean. In the afternoon maybe.”

“Your wife, right?”

“Yeah.” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “She’s in Sacramento, but you already knew that, didn’t you.”

“I followed you to California.” Miles nodded, finally turning the water off as the level reached the drain below the taps. “Close the door, I guess. Or don’t, I don’t care.”

Waylon reached up and began to shut it, but Miles quickly added, “Not all the way.”

He nodded in reply, and left it slightly ajar. Leaning back against the frame, he heard Miles throw his shirt onto the floor. It had been one of Waylon’s sleepshirts, bigger than most of his clothes so it had fit Miles alright.

“This sucks.” He heard Miles grunt, “Talk.”

“You know about my two sons right?”

“Of course the father would use his kids as his go-to.”

“My youngest is ten. The other’s thirteen. They’re a handful.”

“No wonder you’re so good with me.” Miles joked, and he heard the splash of a body submerging in water, “Lots of practice.”

“Yeah, I know how to deal with children.” Waylon smiled, “Leon, the youngest, he’s always getting into trouble. Hides his veggies. Uses the sandbox as a toilet.”

“I think we’d get along.”

“Probably.” Waylon didn’t want Miles to meet his kids. He wasn’t sure quite why, perhaps it was that he didn’t want his kids to meet Miles.

He’d managed to keep Mount Massive from them as much as possible, despite the media attention his footage got. They knew the gist, that their father’s employers had done terrible things to their charges and that Waylon had witnessed it. The details, they were too young to understand, too young to ever have to learn.

Waylon realized he’d stopped talking, so he quickly said, “The older, Tae, is really into astronomy. He has a giant telescope, we always have to make sure he’s in bed at night because he likes to sneak out and set it up on the hill outside the house.” Or at least he did, when life was simpler. As far as he knew, Tae hadn’t taken the telescope out even once since the move to Sacramento.

“Korean name?”

“It was Lisa’s idea. We wanted Leon’s to be a bit heritage ambiguous, but she insisted our second have a more proper Korean name. My parents loved the idea.”

“They like her, huh? Your wife?”

“She’s been apart of the family for a long time.” He smiled at the memories, so warm and gentle in his heart. “Lisa was our next door neighbour when I was growing up.”

“You married the girl next door?”

“We weren’t high school sweethearts or anything, we actually didn’t start dating until college. Do you have anyone?”

“Thankfully unattached.”

“Thankful for whose sake?” He asked, “Yours or your potential partners?”

“Both.”

He didn’t peg Miles as being a relationship oriented sort of guy. Though he shouldn’t say he exactly knew the man well considering the limited time they’d spent together, but Miles was a bit of an open book. Everyone with a strong personality was.

There was also a connection with him Waylon hadn’t had with anyone since Lisa, a natural understanding. It was different than with Lisa though, it was more like the connection one would have with a littermate. He and Miles both had the same mother, Mount Massive.

“Lisa’s helped me a lot. With coping. Even apart.” Waylon spoke up, “We have frequent phonecalls, and we talk. She doesn’t quite understand what I’m going through, but she shouldn’t. She knows how to help though, it’s important to have people like that in your life. People who know how to help you.”

“Subtle.”

“I’m not trying to imply anything.” He sighed, “It’s honestly been the only thing that’s kept me going, her support.”

“She sounds like a good person.”

“She is. She’s special. Strong. Intelligent.” And emotionally intelligent. He’d never known someone so understanding of the human mind and behaviors. He used to joke that she should have gone into psychology instead of biology, but she’d always been passionate about the science of the rest of the natural world rather than the science of the psyche.

It had helped, though, when he came home to her broken and unknowing of how to cope with his alien brain and thoughts.

‘ _Honey, you have to know you have to heal, before you can. Telling yourself you’re fine isn’t going to make you fine.’_ Her gentle hand brushing across his temple, beautiful brown eyes glimmering in the light of the flickering TV, ‘ _I know you’re still hurting.’_

She hadn’t the finesse of his therapist, but the raw power of having someone who cared about him hold him and tell him exactly what they saw, what they knew -- it had been the turning point of his recovery. He wasn’t healed yet, but she helped him realize and put into words the murky feelings of fear and pain that had followed him out the heavy doors of Mount Massive.

Waylon owed Lisa his life, and he hoped someday he’d be able to repay her by joining their two lives once more.

Suddenly realizing the conversation had tapered off, not remembering whether he was waiting for a reply from Miles or the other way around, he quickly spoke up, “What are your plans for the day?” He’d almost said ‘tomorrow’ again, but he could already see the sky had begun to take a lighter tone of inky blue through the one window.

There was no reply, and no sound of moving water. He forced down the building alarm, a howling, screaming siren which demanded he realize that something was W-R-O-N-G. “Miles?”

He refused to panic yet. He would keep his calm.

Waylon heard a small splash and a “ _Shit.”_ then, “Yeah?”

“What are your plans for the day?” He gnawed on his lower lip, “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, I dunno, uh, I dunno.”

Waylon thought Miles’ voice sounded W-R-O-N-G, too hoarse, too forced. “Miles?”

“Can you make this all stop?”

“Stop?”

“Abort mission. Make it stop.”

“The bath?”

“Please.”

Waylon struggled to his feet, painfully unmindful of his leg because at that moment all he could think of was how wrong ‘please’ sounded coming from Miles. Not just how desperate and gravelly it had been, or the context, or the concept of a plea, or the personality it came from, but all those reasons together made Waylon’s stomach full of acid churn.

He kneed open the door the rest of the way as he rose, “I’m coming in.”

Miles was curled at the head of the tub, water lapping at his midsection. At first glance he seemed fine, eyes slightly too tight, mouth a familiar hard line, but Waylon noticed the way his trembling disturbed the water and the too shallow movements of his chest as he breathed.

“Make it stop.” It was an order, not a plea. Miles had made it very clear that this, this situation, whatever was happening in his head, had to stop. Miles didn’t know how to make it stop.

Waylon reached into the water and pulled the plug, “Talk to me Miles, what’s happening.”

“You’re draining the tub.”

“In your head, what’s happening in your head.”

“Now you’re grabbing a towel from the rack.” Miles let his chin rest on his knees, “And you’re about to wrap it around me.”

Waylon sighed, and did as predicted, letting it fall into the water as he draped it around Miles’ body. A second dry one was at the ready, but his priority was to get Miles out and dressed as soon as possible. He wasn’t sure if it was the water or the nudity that was troubling the man, all he knew was he’d asked him to make it stop so he was making it stop.

“C’mon, can you stand?” He asked, tentatively reaching out, “Can I touch you?”

“Don’t-- don’t treat me like that.” Miles still flinched when Waylon placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not-- I wasn’t--”

“There’s nothing wrong with asking permission, not when I don’t know what bothers you.” Waylon murmured, helping him slowly rise up. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He could tell there were many things Miles wanted to say, could see them circling in his brain, confliction and disgruntlement, but he remained silent as Waylon helped him out of the bathtub.

“Hold on.” Waylon quickly switched the soggy towel out with a dry one. “Ok, I’m going to grab some new clothes--”

“No.” Miles quickly cut him off, then looked shocked at the word that had come out of his own mouth, “I mean, these are fine, don’t--” _Don’t go._

Waylon nodded, and grabbed the sleepshirt from the corner of the bathroom while Miles slid one foot into the sweatpants. He’d avoided looking too hard at Miles’ body now uncurled and barely covered, but from the corner of his eye he could see a myriad of healed bullet wounds dappling his chest and stomach, along with one very familiar scar running across his left side, almost a mirror to the one Blaire’s knife had left on Waylon’s own stomach.

“Feast when you can and dream when there’s nothing to feast on.” Miles interrupted his surreptitious observations.

“Pardon?”

“It’s from some stupid song one of my ex’s used to listen to.” He gave him a wry look, “Done staring?”

“I wasn’t--” Miles may not be Sherlock Holmes, but it was easy to forget his job used to be observation.

“I know I look like a zombie.” His tone took on a dreamy quality, soft and vague, “Maybe I am.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re alive aren’t you? You’re breathing, your heart? Isn’t it beating?” He assumed it was, and resisted the urge to reach past the small distance between them to check.

“Maybe,” That familiar smirk returned, “reanimation, I’m the living dead.”

“It’s a gift, Miles, don’t think of it as a curse.”

 

* * *

 

The radio was still on, playing loudly from a digital clock that read 5:18am.

Miles dragged his eyes away from the glowing digits, to Waylon who’s fingers flew over keys of his laptop as he typed. He wondered what he was writing about, what horror he was documenting. He was intimately familiar with the zone he had entered, empty and seperate from the words. How many articles had Miles written about atrocities?

He was glad at least that Park hadn’t insisted on talking about earlier, the second failed attempt at becoming clean. Miles didn’t want to think about it, let alone discuss it.

As soon as he’d taken off his clothes, he’d known it was a bad idea. He thought he could brave through it, thought he was ready, and knowing he wasn’t was almost as painful as the sudden terror of realizing he could feel Trager’s hands through the water.

Being able to see the scars littering his body only made it worse, another reminder that his body no longer belonged to him.

“How are you doing?” Waylon asked from where he sat at the desk, another annoying check-in that Miles wanted desperately to ignore, but knew a non response would only set off more bothering.

“Fine.” He grunted, leaning further back against the pillows of the bed. He’d considered trying to get back to sleep, but ‘considered’ and ‘trying’ were too noncommittal for what actually falling asleep required.

“Do you want to go for a walk? Arizona sunrises are beautiful.”

Of course Waylon would want to go watch the sun.

He didn’t have enough of an argument against it, “Fine.”

“Put some shoes on this time.” Waylon muttered goodhumourdly, pushing his chair away from the desk. As he stood, he winced and let out a small sharp breath.

“Hey House, you doin’ alright?” Miles frowned, noting the heavy way Park shifted his weight off his leg.

“It’s just acting up. I think I might’ve pulled it at some point.” His voice stuttered as he tried to take a step.

“It was your idea to go for a walk.” Miles rolled off the bed and to his feet, crossing the room quickly to grab Waylon’s arm as he began to list to one side. “Takesies-backsies allowed.”

“No, no, I’ll b-be ok. It would be good for us to get some fresh a-air.”

“Do you have a cane or something?”

Waylon flushed slightly, glancing away, “I don’t like using it.”

“Well, I don’t like watching you fall over yourself. Where is it?” Miles shifted so he could help him lean against the desk, glancing around the room. Park’s embarrassed expression told him the cane was probably buried in the closet.

“In the-”

Miles was already on the other side of the room, digging underneath empty suitcases and unused jackets until his hands touched a smooth wood stick, pulling out a rather elegant ochre coloured cane with a soft black handle who’s end curled with fibonacci beauty.

“Damn dude, you takin’ this on the red carpet?”

“It’s not that fancy.” Waylon accepted it with shaking hands as Miles returned to his side, offering the cane. “We bought it at a drugstore.”

“Looks like something you’d find at a pawn shop.”

Waylon choked a laugh out, one that transformed into a hiss of pain once he tried to take a step forward.

“You’ve got the cane in your hand, Park, christ sake, use it.” Miles chastised, irritation rising. Seeing Park suffer and seeing Park be an idiot were two both very annoying things.

After a few moments of re-adjusting his weight to lean partially on the assistance device, the two men let their eyes meet.

“Ready to go?” Waylon asked cheerily, though his eye were wincing and drawn with discomfort.

Miles made a face, then ambled over to where his shoes sat innocently. Pulling them on, he could sense Park approaching and could hear the tapping of the cane hitting the floor. When he looked up, the shorter man was waiting by the door, large frumpy sweater in hand.

“It’s about 50 degrees out, but when you’re used to the hot days, 50 feels like the ice age.” He offered the sweater with a look that demanded Miles take it.

“I’ll pass, thanks.” It was an ugly coniferous green with what looked like the texture of a hook rug.

“You sure? You remember how chilly it was in the evening.”

“It’s fine.” Miles reached for the doorknob and exhaled as he opened the motel room up to world outside.

The sky was now a paler shade of deep blue, with hints of pink and yellow creeping over the low horizon, painting the silhouettes of cacti, desert willows, and yucca trees an inky black.

The two of them slowly walked up the small hill to the side of the motel building, trying to find a spot with the best view. The aching willow from last night came into view, and Miles nudged Waylon’s arm and gestured to the bench.

As they approached, Miles inhaled deeply.

Miles had travelled over the world, and there was something about deserts that drew him. Maybe it was the smell, he would never say this outloud, never admit such poetry could exist inside him, but the smell. Dust, sage, crisp and dry and yet somehow wet as the smells hit him. It was the smell of survival and the disruptive peace that came inherently with living. Children playing in the sand despite bombs drumming their constant beat in the background, animals finding water in world of heat, plants flourishing and creating shade for life. Kandahar, Registan, Sonoran, Gobi, Gibson, _ah, the day’s broken._

The sun had crested the skyline, orange light bouncing shades of pink and purple off hanging clouds.

“In the underground lab, I remember wandering through all those dark tunnels and dead ends and then seeing…” Miles swallowed, “...a window to some kinda cargo loading area. The giant doors at the far end of the area were open, and I could see sunlight pouring in from outside. And no way to get to it. I just stood there staring, hitting my fists off the bulletproof glass and trying not to fucking cry.”

He didn’t look at Waylon, kept his eyes on the sky.

Miles had experienced many moments of conflicting hope and despair, but the sunlight beyond the glass…

“You got out though.”

“I did.” But not on his own. On his own, he would have died in that dark underground lab, with that moment having been his last glimpse of the sun. The Walrider got him out. The Walrider picked him up off the ground like a broken doll and carried him, forced his body to rise, to walk, until he’d reached the lobby and found the sun once more.

“Blaire, you killed him.” Park’s breathy voice spoke.

“The Walrider killed him. I just didn’t stop it.”

“Could you have? Stopped it?”

Miles shrugged. He’d exercised some control over the Walrider before, when crossing travellers on the road, though he suspected back at Mount Massive he’d been too weak to try even if he wanted to. At the beginning of his possession, reanimation, rebirth, submission… he’d been little more than a walking corpse. He’d nothing but his thoughts, which came and went along with consciousness until his body and mind grew stronger.

There was something though, almost a dream --

_Like walking on clouds, he stands on the steps with the light on his face. He feels it, even if finding the sensation in his mind was a fight of its own. Almost as bright as the sun, a flash of red catches his eye and it lazily rolls in its socket until it spots it, the blood red vehicle standing out amongst the fog and smoke of his sight._

_A man is yanking the door open, and even from where Miles stands he can smell the fear and hope wafting off of him. Or maybe It smells it, maybe It and he are less separate and more same._

_‘Run.’ The thought is sluggish, but it’s there, urging the man on, forward, ‘Go.’ It’s hard to think, hard to want, but Miles wants this man to escape. ‘Help him.’_

_There’s a tingle in his fingertips, which spreads across his palms as the Walrider yanks at him as it floods the air and rushes at the jeep. ‘Get’ Miles begged, ‘him’, Miles stumbled, ‘out.’_

_Miles watched as the Walrider pushed the vehicle and its occupant through the gate, and to the outside, to the beyond. ‘I’ll find you.’_

“Thank you, in any case.” Park murmured, his warm copper skin lit by the sunrise.

Miles didn’t know what to say to that, but suddenly wished dearly for a cigarette.

“Need smokes.”

“Huh?”

“Cigarettes. Haven’t had a cigarette in…” In a long time. Up until he reached Waylon’s doorstep, he’d mostly sat backseat and let the Walrider do the driving. Now he wanted. He was allowed to want.

“Those will kill you.”

“Already dead.” Miles grinned and cringed at the same time, hand coming to rest on his stomach, body riddled with bullets healed into his flesh, his organs, nanobots crudely stitching him back together.

Waylon paused a moment, pulling his eyes away from the sunrise to meet Miles’.

“I’ll make you a deal. Stay with me for at least a week, and I’ll buy you all the cigarettes you want.”

Miles blinked, then frowned. ‘ _I_ _don’t have any money.’_

Some part of him, the roamer, the vagabond, the nomad, was screaming that he was just trapping himself in another cage. He was finally free, how could he agree?

The other part of him, his lungs, his missing forefinger that he still felt as as a ghost still felt the ghosts of cigarettes from days when life was simpler, and the part of him that clung to the hope of escape on the shoulders of Waylon Park, whispered, “Ok.”

 


	4. Cleansing

It would be a foggy four hazy hours later that Miles would stand outside the jeep that he now had trouble considering his, owned by him, because it wasn’t now. It belonged to a version of himself that didn’t exist anymore, a louder, braver, bolder him who died in Mount Massive. It wasn’t really Park’s either; stolen, borrowed, but not owned.

The jeep just was.

Maybe, like the two of them, it too was owned in spirit by Murkoff now.

But whatever it was, it was a vehicle and would take him to get cigarettes. Miles couldn’t bring himself to sit behind the wheel, he was only just getting used to driving his own body and mind, let alone four thousand pounds of deadly machinery. That was a spell for vehicular manslaughter.

“Ready?” Park asked, spurring Miles on to climb into the passenger seat.

“Onward, chauffeur.”  He grinned with all his teeth.

Waylon rolled his eyes and pulled himself carefully up into the jeep, sliding his cane in behind the driver’s seat. His leg had seemed to do better after exercising it on their earlier walk, but Miles still noticed Park grunting in pain whenever he stepped too heavily on his right.

As the engine started, Miles revelled in the familiar but suddenly too long lost sensation of rumbling energy as they pulled out of their motel parking spot and drove up the driveway. The last time he’d been in a vehicle, this one in fact, was that night at the asylum.

The hum was similar to the Walrider, a la the familiar, and as he pressed his hand against the inside of his door he could imagine the nanobots swarming around him. He had to be careful, it was easy to slip up and let it manifest. He quickly retrieved his hand, and focused instead on Waylon.

He looked tired which made sense considering his early morning. There were faint traces of bags under his thin eyes, which were focused on the road but occasionally flicked back to Miles. Miles didn’t pretend not to be watching him when they did, when their eyes sometimes met.

“Feast when you can?” Waylon self consciously smiled, echoing his earlier comment.

Miles smirked, “Not hungry.”

That was in fact a lie.

Ever since he met Waylon, since his brain restarted and he was reminded that he was Alive and Safe, his abused and neglected stomach had been aching with hunger. He should have eaten before they left, but then again a cigarette would curb it a little and besides, food had been sitting strangely in him. He was used to being hollow.

It wasn’t long before they pulled up to a small, rundown gas station surrounded by clusters of tall palm trees. There was a stench of spilled gas and rotten lettuce and meat that made Miles nose scrunch as he stepped outside after Waylon parked beside a handmade dog house with a sign that read, ‘Aardvark’.

Waylon shrugged when Miles shot him a look that read, ‘ _What the fuck is this place_.’

“I’ve been here a few times.” Park grabbed his cane, wincing with all his face as he awkwardly maneuvered out of his seat, “There’s some strange people in the middle of nowhere. Watch out for Aard.”

Miles turned fast enough to barely catch a flash of brown as a small creature zipped by him, running into the doghouse before turning on a dime and letting out a low growl, eyeing him. It looked more like a naked rat than an Aardvark.

“He’s a Xoloitzcuintli.” Waylon knelt down with perfect pronunciation and offered his hand for the dog to sniff, “Frisco says he takes a while to warm up to strangers.”

“Show-low-what-cunty?” Miles coughed, staring dazed at the ugly little dog.

“A Mexican hairless.” A gravelly sounding voice informed him, as a man with the crooked back of age and a thick white beard ambled from the direction of the gas station, “Careful Waylon, kid, he nipped ya’ last time.”

Waylon sniffed, “He nipped me when I first pet him, he’s liked me since.” he corrected the man, then glanced over, “Miles, meet Frisco. He owns this gas station.”

In the back of his mind, Miles considered the risks of becoming friendly with the locals when you’re hiding from a massive corporation gunning for your life. Then again, looking at Frisco, he looked like the type who would spit in the face of the feds let alone tattle to something like Murkoff. He wore old, tattered overalls and a large scar under one eye, and a miniature pin up model tattoo on his hand as he reached for the pipe hanging from his teeth.

“Pleasure.” Frisco extended his other hand and Miles offered his own to match the man’s disfigured eye. The man didn’t bat an eye at the missing fingers, and shook strongly, not shying away from bumping against the stump.

Aardvark bark loudly, little naked body quivering with energy as he gnashed his teeth inches away from Miles foot.

“Aard don’t usually bark at people, jus’ don’t like ‘em much. He really don't like you, güey.” Frisco laughed, a deep friendly laugh that came from the stomach.

He decided while Aard may not like Miles, Miles definitely liked Frisco. There was a chaotic, lively energy about the old man that reminded him of his father, of the few memories he had of him.

“Dogs don’t seem to like me.” Miles glanced back at Aard, who was eyeing him warily with his teeth bared. More likely, they didn’t like the Walrider. They seemed to sense it easier than humans, though there had been the rare wanderers few that Miles had run across while walking the roads that seemed to notice there was something off. His mother would have called them star indigo children or empaths or psychically intune.

“You’re probably haunted.” Frisco chuckled, turning to head off to the gas station, “I know a lady, ex-nun, she performs some wicked exorcisms. Knock ya’ socks off.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Miles replied, before he could entertain the idea. Waylon smiled slightly, as they began following him towards the rundown gas station, “Me and my ghost have grown kinda friendly.”

“Way to be.” He clapped Miles heavily on the shoulder, then opened the door for the two, “What can I do ya for, anyway? Juice fer’ your gas guzzler?”

“A prepaid phone and a pack of cigarettes.” Waylon informed, as they entered the musty building which smelled heavily of pipe tobacco, dust, and beef jerky.  

“Camels unfiltered.” Miles piped up, to which Waylon glared at him with the same stare his mother used to wear, except this one had a caveat of, ‘ _you’ve already died once, going for round two?’_

“You know what, I like you, güero.”

“El sentimiento es mutuo.”

Frisco gave another belly laugh and pulled a pack of smokes out from under a hobbled together wooden counter painted yellow, purple, and blue in swirling designs reminiscent of childhood drawings. Miles mouth watered at the sight of the cigarettes.

Waylon sighed and pulled a couple twenties from his pocket.

“You always pay cash, and buy _burners_ , Waylon. One might think you’re on the run.” Frisco tapped his nose with a grin that Miles now saw was missing a couple teeth, handing back his change, “If not for the fact I see you every other day. Then again, you _can_ run without goin’ anywhere.”

“I, uh--” Waylon’s cheeks took on that familiar blush, so Miles stepped up and grabbed the cigarettes.

“Honeymooning. Eloped and tryin’ to lie low while the families freak out. You wouldn’t touch your phone either.”

Frisco’s face didn’t change a bit, and laughed without missing a beat, “Wondering why the boy was buying your smokes, cheaper than a wedding ring eh?”

He slid a prepaid cell phone in thick plastic packaging across the counter, and Waylon nervously grabbed it while shooting Miles a glance.

“I was all like, we should go to Vegas, but he was really keen on the boondocks of Arizona. What can you do?” Miles pulled a cigarette out, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. "Need to buy a lighter." Frisco tossed a small red lighter, grinning with a "keep it, kid", while puffing on his pipe. 

Leaning against the counter, Miles lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. His eyes fluttered shut, and felt the rush go to his head immediately. It’d been so long, he almost thought he was going to pass out for a second when it hit him fully.

“Somehow, I think Mr. Miles is not running, but has just finally stopped.” Frisco’s booming laughter filled the small space, along with the combined plumes of smoke. “Now, Aardvark needs his breakfast. I’ll see you tortolitos soon, no doubt, yeah?”

“No doubt.” Miles croaked. It was rare to come across people with good vibes. He thought his ability to sense good vibes had broken long ago. Frisco had a way about him that went beyond any fulfillments of one’s role in the universe, he was a man who’d seen the world and understood it, and his cigarettes were a good dollar twenty cheaper than Miles remembered paying for smokes. He trusted him.

“Ready to go? It’s illegal to smoke in a public store.” Park nudged Miles’ leg with his cane.

“He’s doin’ it.” Miles gestured to the retreating Frisco, blowing smoke into the dust mote ridden air.

Waylon sighed, scratched his face, then began limping for the door. His cane tapped rhythmically on the wooden floor as he walked. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Miles glanced whale eyed at the grandfather clock looming behind the counter, and took one more drag off his smoke before following his companion out into the dry Arizona dust.

“Thanks Frisco!” Waylon called as he boarded the vehicle, giving Aardvark a wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Frisco threw a pot full of red gory macabre slop onto the ground which the dog immediately began to chew up. Miles could see a few bones in it. He tried not to think too hard, or remember too easily.

“He believes in a purely raw diet.” Waylon whispered conspiratorially.

Miles quirked an eyebrow, sliding into the passenger seat while leaving his right arm hanging outside. It was awkward, no longer having his dominant index finger to hold it, but he was adapting. He’d smoke with his left, if he wasn’t certain Waylon would be upset by smell in the jeep.

“I have to remember to call Lisa later.” Waylon was rambling, supposedly expecting Miles to be listening, which he hadn’t been.

The world around them was quite distracting. Maybe it was the cigarette smoke on the rushing air around the car, guiding his senses towards outer existence. He’d been so internal for so long, just him and the Walrider.

“Is there anyone you want to call before I destroy the old burner?” Waylon was asking, and Miles almost thought about calling his mother, almost, as in the beginnings of the thought planted its conception in his mind but it hadn’t fully taken root or grown into his internal monologue yet.

“No.”

Park shot him an uneasy glance, “Ok.”

Miles felt just as willing to let Park’s question roll off him as he was the wind. The heat of the sun rising slowly up the horizon kept his arm from growing too chilled, instead allowed to wholly enjoy the sensation as he smoked into the open air.

About halfway to the motel, Waylon pulled the jeep down a short dirt road until he slowed to a crawl just passed a large rock formation.

Miles watched his agile fingers pull out the old burner phone, tapping at the buttons then holding it up to his ear and his eyes briefly turned to Miles before averting back to the road, mouth a thin line. His expression then exploded with happiness, murmuring, “Lisa!”

A small tin voice could barely be heard from the other line from where Miles sat passenger, but he could feel the warmth nonetheless.

“W-Wait, I have to tell you something, no, Lisa--” Waylon paused a moment, listening, “I know, we’ll talk about Jesse later but, uh, Lis, someone’s here-- no, not Murkoff! It’s a guy, uh… the guy that I emailed. The report--” There was silence on the line, and then a couple short words. “Yeah, that one. I know. He’s, ah, yeah, no it’s okay, trust me. I’m glad he’s here and… yeah? I’m glad.... Uh huh… no… well he showed up looking for his jeep, yeah it was his. I know, right?”

Miles sniffed, flicking his cigarette out the window, watching it bounce off the rocks with a burst of embers.

Waylon glanced at him again as Miles fumbled for a new cigarette, rolling his eyes, “Yeah, no he’s great. Uh… no he’s not helping with the book but he’s, uh, he’s helping. Lis, don’t-- I know, I know… okay yeah, what’s up with Jesse.”

Miles tuned him out for a moment, scratching a matted lock of hair behind his ear. He wanted to attempt another shower or bath but was terrified what a third failure would do to him.

“Oh… Lisa, I don’t know…” Waylon’s voice became hushed, “It’s not that I don’t trust Jesse, you know I-- okay, okay, fine, but Lisa why can’t he just…”

Miles noticed a snake moving across the base of the rock structure, a rattlesnake, ‘ _I haven’t seen one of those in years.’_ He’d been travelling constantly lately, but his hauntings with the Walrider prior to Waylon were as unreal as dreams. Instead, he thought back to his days as a journalist, back when he’d truly been alive and absorbing the extensive world around him as a free spirit.

The last time he’d seen a rattlesnake was sometime shortly after he decided to drop out of college, a decision that he’d at the time thought would be permanent. He’d gone on a road trip with some buddies during spring break and travelled the country, battled ennui and existentialism and decided he was never going to be stuck in a school again.

The snake he’d seen back then had been slow and groggy, languidly slithering past them without a care in the world before slipping into the underbrush. This snake was far more lively, it’s shaking tail and sharp turns of its head giving an air of untamed ferocity that Miles could sense even from within the safety of the jeep.

He didn’t fear it though, not as he had even that morning so long ago on that naive road trip. He didn’t fear much anymore, at least nothing so tangible as a wild animal, not after the things he’d seen and the memories he bore.

Park was still droning on to his wife, but the conversation seemed to be winding down. Miles was halfway through his second cigarette by the time the shorter man finally leaned down and gave the phone a kiss, murmuring, “Love you Lis. I’ll talk to you soon.”

The rattlesnake slipped away into the cracks of the rocks as the car slowly reversed and pulled back onto the road.

“You don’t have to help me with the book if you don’t want to.” Waylon seemed to try to sound casual about it. He kept one hand on the steering wheel while his other deftly dismantled the older burner phone, popping out the back and pulling out the battery then cracking the fragile inner workings against the jeep’s dashboard.

“I know.” He never implied once that he did want to.

“But if you ever change your mind, I’m here to listen.” Waylon flung the destroyed phone out the window.

The thought of offering an open ear to Waylon in turn crossed his mind, letting him bounce ideas off him, vent his experiences to someone who understood before offering his story to the world. It came too close to helping with the novel, and too close to caring, for him to vocalize though.

They rode on in silence until the dirt road became more like a rock field and they turned onto the long driveway up to the motel.

Miles unbuckled his seatbelt as they rode up, and opened his door just as Park put the jeep into park. He crushed his cigarette underfoot as he approached the other side, driver’s door swinging open.

Waylon blinked as Miles offered his arm, letting the shorter man lean on him as he exited the vehicle. This time his grimace was minute when he put his weight on his right leg, giving Miles a shaky grateful smile.

As they neared the motel room, Miles considered staying outside for another smoke, but decided to give himself a breath of fresh air and went inside.

 

* * *

 

Waylon cracked his knuckles for the third time that morning, hunched over his laptop. The bright screen was starting to give him a headache, backs of his eyes aching.

Across the room Miles seemed to be napping. If the man had been anyone else, Waylon would think he was meditating. He sat on the couch with his eyes closed, arms folded neatly.

When they’d arrived back at the motel Waylon had offered Miles several books and magazines and showed him how to operate the TV, but his guest declined to do much but sit in silence. He’d occasionally return feeble attempts at conversation with half hearted quips until eventually his responses petered out into some semblance of sleep.

If Waylon was perfectly honest, despite wanting to continue working on his manuscript, Miles was distracting and his inaccessibility even more so. There was a desire to continue talking to him that he couldn’t ignore. When he was with Miles, life seemed fuller. Their conversations were interesting and the man was funny and clever, and having just met, Waylon felt deprived.

He returned his gaze back to the screen. The word processor’s insertion point blinked obnoxiously at the end of the last sentence he’d written ten minutes ago, having written and deleted several unsatisfactory passages already. It was a chapter he’d outlined and began working on last week but never finished, the second to last of the manuscript.

It would be noon soon. He considered making lunch for when Miles woke up, but felt he had to make at least _some_ progress before giving up on writing.  

> _Tucked away, hidden as usual, I watched armoured men with large guns walk the halls I’d survived with nothing but my bare hands and a camera. With Gluskin dead, not even their guns scared me as they mowed down everyone they saw. I was hidden._

He deleted the last sentence.

> _Hiding, I wasn’t safe, but I was riding a wave of adrenaline, so I wasn’t scared. Not of the variants, of Murkoff’s paramilitary who killed them, or of the entity swarm that didn’t care how big their guns were, or of the latest bloodbath that would paint a new layer over the halls I’d survived._

He backspaced, and put the period after halls.

Shoving his chair back, he ignored his cane resting against the side of the desk and shuffled over to the kitchenette. Recalling the condiments Miles had preferred on his sandwich last night, he began rifling through the mini fridge.

As he prepared lunch, he thought about the one conversation he certainly _wasn’t_ looking forward to. Unfortunately, he’d have to talk to Miles about Jesse sooner rather than later.

Almost on cue, Waylon heard noise from behind him and turned to see Miles’ eyelids twitch and mouth part. Expecting him to wake, he slid the sandwich onto a paper plate and approached the couch.

The taller man’s eye didn’t open immediately, instead his face twitched then squeezed as though in a grimace, head rolling back and forth on a pivot. It looked enough like a nightmare for Waylon to begin to reach out to shake him awake, but before he made contact Miles flinched violently and his eyelids sprang open but his gaze unfocused.

“Miles?”

“Huh?”

Miles blinked, looking around and casually regaining his bearings, but as Waylon passed him the plate he noted the tremor in his hands.

“I made you lunch. Are you okay?”

Clearing his throat, he nodded, “Yeah, didn’t mean to nod off.”

Waylon smiled patiently while Miles pulled up the corner of the bread and glanced at the sandwich contents. “You probably needed it.”

He grunted in response and took an eager bite.

While Miles ate, Waylon began rehearsing how he’d bring up the burning issue that needed to be addressed. He had three hours until he had to meet up with Jesse, and part of him wanted to wait for the last second to tell Miles about it, but the rational part of him knew if Miles was going to be staying with him any amount of him, he had to know about Bisou.

“So I, uh, I have to drive out to the town this afternoon.” Waylon coughed, sitting on the arm of the couch. “I have to meet my brother-in-law.”

Miles frowned, “Why? Is that safe?”

“I trust him, and I owe him. I’m doing him a favour.”

“Whatever, just don’t get yourself killed. Do you want me to come along?”

“I-it’s okay, it’s nothing like that. I have to…” He scratched his head, “take care of his sparrow.”

Miles blinked twice, sandwich inches from his mouth, “A bird?”

“He's got to take an emergency trip to France to take care of their dying grandmother, his and Lisa’s grandmother. No one can look after his sparrow so he’s driving four hours just to get it here and booked his flight out in Tucson.”

Miles blink again, “You don’t gotta explain it t’ me, it’s your motel room.”

“Well yeah, But I, uh, was hoping you’d be staying a while and wanted you to know about a… uh, bird.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” The smile he gave wasn’t condescending though, despite the dryness of his words.

“I mean, I didn’t want--”

“Don’t worry about it.” Miles interrupted, then finally took another bite of his sandwich, and through a stuffed mouth, “Do you know anything about birds?”

“I know Lisa hates them.”

Miles laughed, crumbs flying.

Waylon grinned. Over the years, Lisa had shown great detest for Bisou, the male Spanish Sparrow her brother had rescued as a fledgling from their mother’s cat. There was a long and beautiful story there, and he hoped Miles would want to hear it sometime.

For now, he was just content with the ease at which Miles accepted things.

Leaving his guest to eat, Waylon returned to his laptop and gave his word document one glance before closing the tab and opening a search engine. The earlier question had reminded him that he did need to do some research on bird care. Jesse would provide him with enough food to last the week and through Lisa, relayed an insistence he only put Bisou in his cage at night no matter what the internet said.

It took about half an hour before he felt decently confident in his ability to keep this bird alive, and after glancing at the clock, he sighed.

Behind him he heard Miles rifling through the magazines, but resisted the temptation to try to pull the man into conversation. Waylon came out here to the middle of nowhere for the purpose of putting his story down on paper, so to speak. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

After staring at his manuscript document for three minutes, Waylon shut his eyes. Using his good foot, he spun his chair around to face his guest.

“There’s a coin laundromat in town, do you want to come with and wash your clothes?”

Miles blinked, “Oh, uh, I guess.”

“Do you want to try washing up again and clean the ones you’re wearing too? I’ve got some other clothes that might fit you.” Miles did look a little goofy in sweats and a sweater but he wore them better than anyone else he knew. Waylon was sure he had another set tucked in his suitcase somewhere.

After noticing the grimace on Miles’ face, Waylon added, “Maybe just try washing your hair in the sink, and scrub up a little with a facecloth?”

“I know how to take a bird bath, thank you.” He paused, “And maybe. That might work.”

“Okay well, I’ll sit outside if you want, in case you're worried.”

“Not much you can save me from in this scenario, Park.”

“I can offer you support, at least.”

Miles was gazing at him with that familiar indecipherable look. Whatever it meant, some part of it made Waylon feel good. Perhaps it was the softness of it, sometimes strange looking on Miles’ face.

The man turned and made his way to the bathroom, and as Waylon worked on easing himself down onto the floor outside the half shut door, he heard the tap run.

“Did you have siblings?”

Waylon chuckled a little, “‘Did’?”

“Do.”

"They and myself are all still here, and yes. I have a little brother and a little sister.”

“Of course you’re the oldest. What, were you like a parent to them?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got that protective, nurturing good person thing going on.”

Waylon smiled fondly, “Yes, I did take care of them a bit, but our parents were good at raising us and I was allowed to be a kid too. My wife was like a parent to her brother though, so I know what the other side of that situation looks like.”

“Huh.”

Waylon heard splashing, as Miles rinsed his hair. He couldn’t see into the bathroom but could see a faint shadow of the man’s silhouette on the wall.

“How are you doing?”

“My point exactly.” The tap turned off and Waylon saw the shadow pull of his shirt, and the sounds of water returned. “Protective, nurturing good person.”

“You’ve never felt like taking care of someone?”

The sounds of movement paused, before Miles muttered, “Things like that aren’t my forte. Never _got_ taken care of and never had anyone _to_ take care of when I was a kid.”

“My therapist said--”

“Ohhh, ‘my therapist said’.” Miles mocked, voice light.

“You should honestly consider it, therapy helped me a lot in those first couple months.”

“Our situations are slightly different.”

It was true their situations differed, but didn’t negate the healing benefits of therapy. Even if Miles' and Waylon's personalities were also mismatched, a good psychologist would know how to work with the complicated man. Everyone was complicated in their own way, after all.

Even so, the thought brought on some insecurity about Waylon’s own abilities to help Miles regain some stability. He usually tried not to think too much about what the journalist had gone through, the experiences that were in part Waylon’s own fault. There was of course a desperate, self loathsome curiosity along with a burning need to relate to another person, but Miles had made it clear he didn’t want to talk about Mount Massive.

How could Waylon blame him, especially now that he himself had been struck with doubt. Surely Miles -- who had by all intents and purposes died, been cursed, been haunted -- was aware of how little Waylon could actually help.

_‘Not much you can save me from in this scenario, Park.’_

“Park?”

Waylon blinked, ah, he’d lost the conversation again. Internally, he beat himself for simply proving himself right. “S-sorry, so you never had any s-siblings?”

He was grateful that Miles didn’t callout his stutter, replying, “No, was an only child.”

The splashing sounds continued, and judging from the shadow on the wall, Miles was wearing minimal if any clothing.

‘ _You’ve helped him get to this point, at least. He’s able to clean himself up, you’re not failing him. It’s a step by step process.’_ He thought, even though the words took on Lisa’s voice.

“Was it very lonely?”

“Well,” Miles turned the tap off, and Waylon heard a wet towel be tossed to the floor, “...a little I guess.”

“Were you close with your parents?”

Waylon waited for a response, but the silence stretched on, the shadow unmoving. Just when he was about to speak again, asking if Miles was okay, the shadow’s arm reached out past his field of view and presumably pulled a towel off the rack, judging from the sounds.

“I thought about her, when I was in that place.” Miles voice was low, “My mom. I don’t usually think about her much, we weren’t close. Something happened, and I think I- I realized the things that I couldn’t on all those other jobs as a journalist. I always thought fear… I don’t know.”

Waylon didn’t reply at first, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought, but finally replied, “Fear can be powerful.”

“I’m scared-- I’m scared of my own body. It’s sabotaging me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It makes me… makes me think of that place.” The door swung further open, and Mile stood with the dry towel wrapped around his waist. His scarred body was more exposed somehow than Waylon had ever seen it. The man strode past him mechanically, eyes distant. He stopped in the center of the room, and spoke as Waylon went to get the extra clothes, “Not just Mount Massive, but Trager’s ward -- of Trager-- and my fingers and--”

“Trager took your fingers?” He knew the name.

“He took… a lot.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you’re uncomfortable, but Miles, if you can…” Waylon handed him the set of clothes, “you should. It’ll be good for you.”

Miles seemed to be running on autopilot, and began pulling the towel off to get dressed so Waylon quickly turned to give him some privacy,

“It doesn’t feel good.” Miles swallowed, “It feels like my guts are being torn out.”

“I know.” He did know.

“Did anyone… when you were in the asylum, did anyone ever...”

“Ever what?”

When no response came, Waylon carefully glanced over his shoulder to find Miles dressed and looking at him.

The taller man gave him a long stare, green eyes bright with glaze. Waylon tried to find the end of the question in his eyes, but found nothing there. This wasn’t something he could think would come to him through solved puzzles or guessing games, this was something Miles had to give him.

“Have you told anyone about the worst thing that happened to you in there?” Miles finally asked, retreating from the spotlight over to the couch. “Can you even determine what the ‘worst’ was?”

“Yes, and yes.”

“It was all hell. Every minute inside that place was the worst minute of my life compared to life before… but only Trager came out of the asylum with me, like he piggybacked my consciousness along with the Walrider.”

“He’s gone, Miles. I even saw his body.” Waylon slowly made his way to his chair, “Your memories are keeping him alive in your mind, but _you’re_ the one who got out of there, not him.”

When working the with the leaks organization and the police, he’d poured over his own footage, trying to match faces to names from the list of employees and patients he’d been provided. The leaks group was the ones who pointed out Trager to him, when certain media groups became interested in the footage confirming deaths of any administrative staff.

Murkoff had swept the area clean of most evidence by the time officials had gotten anywhere near the scene, but Waylon had video proof of Richard Trager’s demise and even if the world may never know what had happened between Miles and Trager, Miles at could least know _he_ , Miles Upshur, was the victor, the survivor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for my notoriously slow updates. Thank you to all who have read!
> 
> Here at the end of part four, Miles attempts to wash up, we get success and some progress in recovery from trauma.


	5. Copper Clothes, Copper Water

Miles could hear his heart beating a rhythmic electropop bass in his ears, blood pumping too fast, all of reality had sped up in fact. He could feel time slipping past him, tactile sensations of losing and missing and not quite grasping.

It felt better to be sitting, now clothed and curled in the corner of the couch rather than standing out in the open trying to listen but only hearing his heartbeat.

Waylon was still talking, almost as if to fill the perceived silence but Miles knew it would never be quiet to him. His blood, the hum, the ticking, that third voice he couldn’t shake… ‘ _green’_ and his fingers burnt with a stinging pain that was almost audible to him -- a throbbing, rising and falling buzz in the back of his brain.

“Miles?” Waylon was now sitting on the other side of the couch. Miles was surprised his close proximity didn’t bother him much, and knew the man was smart enough not to try to touch him. He grit his teeth.

‘ _Think logically. Think self-deprecating. Just don’t fall apart.’_ Of course he felt like an idiot for being so shaken and self absorbed, for making Park talk in circles to himself with conversations that strayed in and out of the realm of uncomfortable.

Half way through Waylon’s next sentence, Miles interrupted, “Stop.”

“I’m s-sorry, is there anything I can do?”

“That’s not what I meant, I-I-” Now _he_ was the one with the stutter, “Okay, I freaked out a little but I’m cleaned up and everything’s cool now, I’m fine.”

His tone was clipped, and he hoped it didn’t come across as angry -- but he was angry. Mostly at himself.

The gentle brush of the soft fabric of the shirt he wore against his skin left a trail of fire and misfiring synapses that translated the touch into pain, something that crawled slowly, a seeping burn that worked its way into and under his skin.

It was the softness, like the touch of fingers tracing flesh, perhaps dragging down his side while a voice hummed quietly.

Tick-tock.

“Miles…” Waylon finally murmured, “talk to me. I know we’ve only just met, but you’re facing a huge transition in your life right now, t-taking the first steps towards getting your l-life back. I-It’s not going to be easy, trust me. I know. S-so e-even though we haven’t known each other long, I feel like the friendship we could have is something important and something to take strength in. At least that’s the way I feel about it, and I-I hope you can too.”

Not for the first time Miles wanted to ridicule the man for being naive, but at the same time found nothing but respect for him, in the way he could clearly speak his feelings and say the things a person was supposed to say.

“What, I never remind you of the horrible shit you’ve been through?” Miles rasped somewhat sharply, “Me being here hasn’t caused you any distress in any way?”

Park frowned, “Sometimes healing hurts.”

“Everything hurts.”

“Please, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Hiding from your p-pain is n-never going to make it go away. If there was anyone in the world who you could trust with your baggage, trust to underst-stand you, it’s me.”

“There’s shit you just don’t talk about, Park. Other people talk about it, people like I used to be, reporters, news anchors, you read about shit in articles or watch it on an uncomfortable TV public service announcement, but you don’t talk about it yourself and not to other people.”

His lungs felt deprived.

“Are you ashamed?”

Miles blinked, and closed his mouth even though breathing through his nose felt like he was suffocating. Of course he was ashamed. He was even more ashamed that he felt that way. Feeling weak because he felt weak because he _was_ weak.

“Does it matter?” He finally asked, clearing his throat.

Park shrugged, “If you are, you don’t have to be, but there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling that way… I hated myself for some of the things that happened. I still do. But… I-I just want you to know that I’m not some person reading the news. We both came out of M-Mount M-Massive alive.”

“What’s the worst thing that happened to you? You said you knew.”

“I do know. It’s not easy t-t-to talk about, but I’ve gotten better with practice. It’s not quite so raw.” Waylon sighed a little, “I was captured by a man named E-Eddie G-Gluskin. He had been mutilating fellow male patients in order to c-create the p-perfect wife, and he h-hoped I would fulfill that role. I was s-stripped and t-tied down, and he positioned a s-saw at my groin.”

“Did he…”

“I was saved by an inmate who attacked him, and freed myself. I-I was luckily mostly unscathed until I fell trying to jump from a ledge while running from Gluskin and well… my leg.”

Miles glanced at it, the physical suffering a reminder of Waylon’s emotional suffering, a reminder of his trauma.

“Did Gluskin want to, y’know, consummate the marriage?”

Waylon’s lips tightened, “I-I suppose, yes. I believe he wanted to s-save that for after my int-tended ‘s-surgery’.” He used air quotes, but his hands shook a little.

“Trager…” The name was sour in his mouth, like bile, “I escaped too, after I lost my fingers, I got away, but I couldn’t escape _him_. I fucked up.”

“I did too, it was my mistake that led to me falling, I misjudged my abilities. That’s ok though, it’s _not_ our fault. We were put in an impossible, already fucked up situation.” Waylon rubbed his eyes, then glanced at Miles, “What happened?”

“He...” Miles felt his stomach cave in, as though his inside had suddenly disappeared. Voice light, almost joking, he held up his hand, “I’d already had my surgery, he didn’t have to wait.”

Waylon’s eyes zeroed in on the missing finger, the implication of Miles response seen through the gap like a window.

“He wanted to…?”

“It was more like an afterthought, I think. He thought I was pretty.” A wet mouth on his neck, ‘ _Y’know, it could be dangerous in here for someone like you.’_ “The note on his wall said the order was cut off the fingers, then balls, then tongue but I guess he took a detour ‘cus he wanted...” His teeth felt like they’d break from the strength of his grinding jaws, “He just… wanted. He took my fingers, and then he wanted to take my pride, I guess. My hope.”

“I’m sorry, Miles.”

Maybe Waylon said that because he didn’t know what else to say, but the sentiment angered him. “I’m not gonna say it was my own damn fault because yeah, fuck you, I know how this shit works, I blame myself and then whatever, trauma symptom, yadeda, but don’t say your fucking sorry because, what, you’re sorry that happened to me? Your sorry you escaped?”

Waylon didn’t reply, just exhaled slowly, eyes pulling away from Miles.

Miles’ hand gripped itself tightly in a fist, “It’s just all fucking stupid.”

“I… your feelings aren’t stupid, but I do agree. I-It’s stupid that the universe allowed you t-to be hurt. It’s stupid that T-Trager was allowed to be born. Allowed to be… someone who would do something like this. The only justice is that he’s dead, and even that’s not justice enough.”

“Mr. Perfect pulling out the stops tonight. Like a goddamn high school guidance counsellor, trying to say exactly what I need to hear.” Miles scoffed, even though the words felt hollow. Waylon just wanted to help.

“I can’t assume to know exactly what happened to you in Mount Massive, but I can extrapolate that you were--” Waylon paused, taking a shallow breath, “--put in a situation meant to degrade and dominate you. Mutilating you, hunting you down, hurting you, he did those things because he wanted power over you because he was a sick, twisted man and now he’s a dead twisted man. You can’t expect to be able to recover from the psychological effects of something like that without acknowledging and working through the pain and memories.”

“Why be an IT guy when you could be a psychologist.”

“It’s going to be ok Miles.” Waylon smiled, “I know that sounds like what I’m supposed to say, but I truly believe that someday it’s going to be ok for us.”

“I wish I had your optimism.”

“I wish you did too, but I don’t blame you for it.” His gentle expression, had it been worn by anyone else, if anyone else had been in Waylon’s position, would have infuriated Miles half a year ago. Now, knowing who Waylon was and what he thought, it was calming.

Instead of replying he leaned back against the couch and thought about Waylon running, running then limping, escaping and surviving. Technically he did too, didn’t he? He made it out. He was alive, more or less.

His heart was beating, he knew because it was almost loud enough to drown out the ticking.

And Waylon’s beat, keeping his body alive, his body that had been hurt but protected and now sat beside him.

Two physical bodies, alive and harmed.

“You don’t have to come with me to town.” Waylon spoke up, “I’ll be leaving in an hour or two, but not until I know you’re going to be alright.”

Some part of him still wanted to go with, didn’t want to be alone with the Walrider and Trager’s ghost. “More or less.”

“You’re going to be more or less alright?”

“I’ll still come with you.” Miles coughed, “I don’t want-- I’ll be ok.”

“Are you sure? Don’t push yourself, you’ve already been out once today and I know it can take awhile to… reintegrate yourself into society so to speak.”

He shrugged, “I’m sure.”

Waylon nodded slowly, “Okay… so you’ve told me what happened, kinda, but what are you going through right now. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I can’t imagine how.”

“My wife helped me when I was dealing with my PTS, well, I’m _still_ working on dealing with it. She helped me work through my triggers, helped ground me when I felt like I was losing control.”

“You’re not my wife.” Miles replied dryly.

“I can still try to help, Lisa herself didn’t know how what I was going through felt, but I do. Maybe not exactly, but it took me two weeks before I could fully look my naked body in the mirror. I understand how normal everyday things can bring me all the way back to the asylum, back to the Groom, to the Engine, the blood, the fear.”

Miles wanted so badly to give Park what he wanted, but didn’t himself fully know what he was going through. He knew the basic mechanics of trauma and how it can affect the mind, but an affected mind was so lost in the confusing ways the past made its way to the present that he struggled to just find the words to describe what was happening.

“Sometimes I…” God, it was embarrassing just to try, “There’s a, uh, there was a clock in the room that-- that it-- y’know, happened. And I hear it, think I can hear it, sometimes.” Vulnerability didn’t suit him. He knew he’d never been so unattractive. “And I feel touches, hands touching my skin and it feels like it’s real like it’s--”

Miles voice broke off, and shut his mouth.

“That’s-- I mean that’s a reasonable response to what you’ve been through. Sometimes I think I see the G-Groom out of the corner of my eye, over my shoulder.” Waylon offered.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“It’s just injured, not lost.”

“My skin is crawling.”

“Is it happening now?”

He shrugged, “I dunno, it… it comes and goes.” Comes and goes, like Waylon’s stutter, his limp, sometimes ok, sometimes not.

“When you experience it, sometimes simple distractions help keep me from getting overwhelmed and going into a crisis mode.”

“Simple distractions?”

“Well, we haven’t turned the TV on once since you got here.” Waylon carefully reached over to grasp the remote off the side table, giving Miles a wide berth, “We don’t have to stop talking, but maybe it’ll help keep you from getting hyper focused on what’s… on what you can’t control right now.”

Miles blinked, as the screen blinked on and the quiet sounds of a talk show filled the room. A musician of some sort was rambling on.

“How long did it take?”

“Hm?”

“Until you believed things would be ok eventually?”

“I--” Maybe he’d been caught in a lie, less convinced of the future then he’d put on, but Waylon quickly recovered, “It was slow. Lisa helped, her faith in me helped me have faith in myself. I trust her and if she trusted me… then I had to as well, right?”

“I don’t trust anyone though.” He trusted Waylon, he must in some way, if he could sit here next to him.

“It takes time. I already trusted her, she was already a solid piece of my life, so I imagine it’ll take you longer, but I know you can do it.”

The talk show host laughed on the TV, slapping his hand on his desk, and the audience have hoots and hollers. This was what real life was, people watching garbage television, garbage people spilling their thoughts on the air.

It was hard to think about the fact that outside this motel room, the world kept going. His mother was somewhere, doing something, his old colleagues, college buddies, ex girlfriends and boyfriends, everyone was living their lives.

“What do you think I’ll be doing in a year?” Miles asked quietly, eyes still on the TV screen, before glancing over.

“I can’t predict that, no one can. I can’t do it for myself, so I won’t do it for you.” Park’s face was open and honest, “But I think you’d be surprised at how much progress you’ll make by then.”

Miles scoffed a little, but the true and blatant faith in Waylon’s eyes kept him from making a biting remark. Some things, you didn’t want to crush.

 

* * *

 

It was hard, listening to Miles talk. Waylon couldn’t deny that.

Though he felt a little out of his depth, despite the way their experiences reflected each other in many ways, he had such deep respect for this man and the fact he was alive.

Because he was. Even if Miles doubted the details of his own existence, the Walrider and the circumstances of his living causing such difficulty in accepting he _was_ alive -- it only increased those feelings in Park. Despite it all, Mount Massive, the Walrider, Trager, Miles Upshur was sitting right beside him. He was sharing his thoughts. He was breathing.

Waylon didn’t want to think too hard about Miles earlier words, the way things started to click together regarding the things the man had difficulty with: nudity, touch, closeness, vulnerability. It made it harder, more painful, to start to realize the full extent of what Trager had done to this person.

It also reflected his own fears, the fears he’d had while under the Groom’s control. While the sick man’s fantasies had never been played out, Waylon had truly accepted at the time that he was going to be brutalized and violated. Miles’ words reminded him that yes, it really could have happened, as well as the fact it _didn’t_ happen and he escaped.

Neither had said the word yet though, Waylon didn’t even want to think it yet, had been avoiding it. The word that made anyone feel a little sick when they read it in the newspaper.

Testing it out in his mind, he took a deep breath and thought, ‘ _rape.'_

He couldn’t look at Miles as he did, not yet. He’d known him for such short time but the impact this person’s presence in his life was powerful, and God did it hurt to know how badly he hurt.

Empathy was a curse sometimes, nothing compared to what Miles had been cursed with, and he knew he couldn’t let this get in the way with helping his friend heal. Right now, it was important to him that he have a place in Miles recovery, and he figured important to Miles too.

“How are you feeling?” Waylon asked quietly, despite knowing it annoyed his friend. He wished he knew of a more covert way of checking in with Miles, it was something he’d have to think about.

The taller man grunted noncommittally, still watching the TV. They’d changed the channel to a cooking show, then switched again to a comedy special after Waylon confessed sometimes pots on stoves made him think of cannibalism in the furthest reaches of his mind.

Miles was distant, eyes not focused on anything. His state of being didn’t necessarily reek of of something dangerous, saddening, or ill, more like a daydreaming child, but Waylon knew they both stood on cracking thin ice.

Trying again to at least make contact, “Do you know where your jacket and old clothes are? Still in the bathroom? I can bag them up with the spare set I lent you. Best we gather them up so we don’t forget them.”

“Separate bags.” Miles muttered, “Put ‘em in separate bags.”

“Ok.” He didn’t ask why. “T-There’s some empty grocery bags hung in the closet from shopping. You go put the spare set in a bag and I’ll go grab your clothes from the bathroom.”

Waylon just wanted them both up off this couch, wanted to break the numbing zone that had fallen over them. They didn’t have to leave for town for awhile yet, but they had to leave this couch.

“Ok.” Miles didn’t argue.

As the other man slowly rose, stiffly like most of his movements always were-- that robotically painful gait Waylon had witnessed him cross the threshold of this room for the first time with-- Waylon himself stood and shakily limped to the bathroom. Each step was agony. They really were mirrors of each other sometimes, weren’t they. Too similar, and too different to touch through the glass.

Behind him, Waylon heard Miles rifling through the closet, and turned to face the dim yellow bathroom light. Those clothes were sitting piled beside the sink, in the same spot they’d dropped to yesterday, untouched and unmoved.

He braced himself, and carefully picked up the crusted and ragged brown leather jacket, flakes of dried blood coming off and fluttered to the white tiled floor, and then grabbed the stiff copper smelling shirt that was likely once white, but now brown like it was rusted. It must have been soaked through, and he could see now small tears that had been hidden by the jacket when it’d been worn by its owner. Those bullet-hole scars flashed through Waylon’s mind.

The pants and underwear Waylon refused to look at as he picked them up and piled them with the rest in his arms.

Exiting the bathroom, he felt haunted like Mount Massive and Richard Trager’s horrors were following him, following the clothes it’d left it’s mark on.

Miles stood by the door, crumpled plastic bag in hand.

“We’ll head out in about half an hour, ok? It’ll be a bit of a drive to the town. Are you still sure you want to come with?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok.”

He didn’t want to push the man in either direction. It would be Miles’ choice, and Waylon would trust it.

“I’m going to take a quick shower, will you be ok alone?”

“Ok.”

Waylon frowned.

Miles frowned back, blinking, “Yeah, I’ll be fine, go take your shower.”

“You sure?”

“Take your fucking shower, Park, I’m not a child.”

Waylon bit back his words, only just relieved to hear a spark of Miles true voice again. How short a time they’d known each other, and yet how familiar Waylon felt with the man. Miles both made sense and no sense in all the right ways, ways that Waylon felt comfortable with and drawn in by. So alike and so different.

So he turned and returned to the awfully relevant bathroom, in less than twenty-four hours Miles Upshur had left his mark on this motel room. His presence, his past, memories left in the empty corners Waylon had until now inhabited alone. Now the bathroom was a space of fear and hope, and Waylon stepped back into it warily.

He’d been putting off his shower all day, avoiding this room Miles’ pain had staked claim to.

Closing the door, Waylon slowly undressed and avoiding looking in the mirror as he adjusted the dials and let the shower spray come to temperature.

There were still stains of blood around the drain from the other man’s few failed attempts at cleaning up. Waylon stared, waiting for a solid minute without moving until the water washed the last of it away.

When he finally entered the water, letting it wash over his body and face, he felt his shoulders slump and tension slowly ebb away. Eyes shut, he stood naked and enveloped in the warmth and cleansing beat of droplets on his skin.

It took some effort to reach for a towel to wipe his eyes, then to scrub at the grime of the last couple days.

When he finally exerted the effort he quickly fell into the methodical task and let himself work on autopilot. Clean, clean, clean. He worked slowly but effectively, rubbing the soapy towel over his body while thinking of nothing.

Waylon was careful with washing his weak leg, knowing the exact spots that he couldn’t apply too much pressure to, the places his torn muscles and ligaments never healed. He occasionally welcomed the dull ache though, keeping him grounded in his work.

He thought about Miles standing at the sink, finally cleaning the dried bodily fluids off his skin. He thought about laying naked on the Groom’s table, blade coming closer. He thought about the water, cascading down, and let himself think about nothing.

Not bothering to shampoo his hair, he finally grabbed a large bath towel off the rack and stepped a foot out onto the floor mat.

It was a time to be clean. He had to be clean, strong, safe.

For Miles.

Could he do it for Miles?

He’d do it for Miles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda short but this chapter's been written for months and I feel I need to focus on the next one to get the words flowing again. I have four five chapter arcs worked out, it's just being able to sit down and fill them out that get's me caught in bad traps, you feel. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	6. Die

Waylon’s hands gripped around the steering wheel, fingertips pressing hard against the give of the cushioned padding. He was trying to ground himself in any way possible, it’d been hard to concentrate the last couple hours with a flighty mind unable to stay focused one thing for long. The road ahead of him stretched threateningly on.

At least Miles had been acting more like himself-- whatever definition that covered. Rather, he’d finally broken out of his stupor and was more reactive in his responses. They hadn’t been on the road long, but they’d already managed three full two-sided conversations and Waylon considered that a mighty success considering the events of the day.

The times of instability and pain lended to making him appreciate the moments of calm and normalcy even more. The contrast just went to show how incredible it was that the two men could occasionally act like average everyday people. If a third party sat in the back seat of the jeep, they’d attest that they just appeared to be two casual roommates running some errands.

Miles had his arm dangling out of the window, cigarette in hand. Waylon had told him to get his smoking over with on the drive there because neither Jessie nor Bisou the bird enjoyed cigarette smoke.

“No smoking on the way back, not with the sparrow in the car.” Waylon had warned him, “And don’t even think about ever smoking in the hotel room when the bird’s here, let alone the extra smoke damage charges I can’t pay for.” He actually could pay for it, but he didn’t want Miles to know that.

“Yes mom.” Miles had rasped dryly before lighting up.

Now they’d lapsed into silence though, Miles gazing passively at the landscape flying by them, Waylon trying to ground himself to keep from drifting away with him and his smoke.

If he weren’t driving, he’d be ok with them both fading away for a little bit. It was inevitable that they both would need to at some point, a curse given from the gift of psychological survival was the way their minds could turn off when the stress overwhelmed them.

He was driving though, and not overly stressed in contrast to his life’s new average, and knew he could fight the floating feeling so long as he focused.

“When did you start smoking?” He asked, palms grinding against the steering wheel grip.

Miles paused a moment, “Around fifteen, I think. Maybe one or two smokes younger.”

“Ever tried to quit?”

“A couple times. Always ‘cus whoever I’m dating asked me to.”

“Girlfriends haven’t liked you smoking?” _Or boyfriends?_

“Or boyfriends.” Miles confirmed.

Waylon nodded slowly, not at all surprised. “You ever manage to quit long?”

“Never managed to stay in a relationship long.” Miles chuckled lightly, tapping the ash off his cigarette.

“You’ve never wanted to quit for your own sake?”

“Don’t care enough. Smoking feels nice and some people are just born knowing they aint gonna live long.”

Waylon rolled his eyes, not believing how ridiculous Miles sounded. No one could know something like that. No one could be born accepting an early death. Fearing death was natural. “That’s stupid.”

“C’mon, you’re telling me you never knew any kids you grew up with that you just _knew_ were gonna die young?”

Waylon sighed and didn’t bother arguing, watching the man take a drag with his cigarette barely outside the jeep window, smoke curling into the vehicle. He didn’t snap at him or complain, just rolled his own window down the rest of the way to air it out while shooting Miles a long stare.

Miles shrugged but leaned a little further out his own, arm stretching.

“How are you feeling?” Waylon finally asked, rubbing his thumb over the leather center of the jeep’s wheel, careful not to accidentally press the horn.

“Fine.”

Waylon certainly wasn’t wholly fine, so he knew Miles wasn’t either. He hated how easy it was for the other man to lie.

“We talked about a lot of really hard stuff earlier and I just want to touch base with you before we reach town.” Waylon murmured, though he knew Miles was thinking about how much he sounded like a therapist.

“I’m fine.”

“Miles--”

“Shut up alright, god damn it.” Miles laughed though, sharp and raspy, “You don’t gotta do this.”

He ruthlessly flicked his spent cigarette out the window.

“You said you’d let me help you.”

“I never said jack shit. You said you could help me, I told you you weren’t my fucking wife.”

“You opened up to me though.”

Then Miles shut down, mouth tight. He looked away and remained silent as the Arizona landscape flew by them. They sat in the unbreakable silence for a few minutes. Waylon breathed deeply and focused on the road with all its slow twists and bends.

Finally, “You have to admit to yourself, we’re important to each other. We just met but I think we _had_ to meet. When you wandered all around following your jeep… you don’t even feel comfortable driving it yet, what were you going to do when you found it? Somewhere inside you, you knew that you had to meet me, t-that you had to f-find me.”

“I was barely lucid the whole time walking, I wasn’t thinking or knowing anything.”

“You were running on instinct and driven by the W-Walrider. Deep down, somewhere inside you, you knew you had to find me.”

“I barely knew who you were, you were just some guy that escaped in my jeep, dumbass.”

“The only person who you knew for sure escape alongside you.”

 

* * *

 

_‘Run. Go.’_

_A man is opening the jeep door. The Walrider watches. Miles watches._

_‘Help him.'_

_The primal core of the human screams at the technology infesting its spirit, ‘Help him. Get him out.’_

_The man in the jeep. Miles watches. Miles screams. ‘Run. Go.’_

_Miles promises. ‘I’ll find you.’_

The late afternoon sun made Miles’ tan skin prickle through the open window. It washed over him, warming and frying him.

Not that it mattered, but Miles hoped Waylon wasn’t still talking. He’d stopped listening awhile ago.

‘ _I’ll find you.’_ He’d stopped listening because Waylon was right, he had found him.

Those shattered, wispy memories that felt like from a different lifetime and a different mind -- they held that image of this man in this vehicle, and now Miles sat here with him.

That barely conscious creature that dragged itself across the country saw Waylon and knew that it couldn’t wake up and join humanity again alone.

“Thank you.” Miles finally muttered, glancing over, “For escaping.”

“No, thank _you_.” Park sounded _almost_ bitter.

Thing was, the memories before, it was hard -- almost impossible -- to let them be Miles’ own. They sat uncomfortably in his mind, foggy yet in some way sharper and crisper than any memory he’d ever experienced. Random details stood out, but some parts were like a dream.

He wasn’t that man anymore though. If anything, that man died. Miles was his corpse, some leftover of the horrors that’d occured.

He couldn’t be the man restrained and mutilated. He couldn’t be ‘ _delicious’_. He couldn’t even be the journalist anymore. That man died in the underground laboratory, riddled with bullets. The corpse that stood up afterwards, weight pulled by the Walrider’s influence, that wasn’t/couldn’t be the same Miles Upshur.

“What do you think of me?” Miles asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you see me as.” He frowned, seeing the next question in his eyes, “You don’t have to ask me again if I’m fine.”

“I wasn’t going to ask if you were fine, I was going to ask how you were feeling. There’s a difference.”

“Well I’m--”

“You’re petulant and stubborn. You’re strong. You were probably fantastic at what you did, your writing, your research. You’ve probably been keeping yourself emotionally cutoff for your entire life to protect yourself. Maybe stemming from childhood neglect, you said you weren’t close to your mother, but I won’t assume. You’re an idiot sometimes. You’re also really clever.” Waylon made a right hand turn down a small road, “That’s how I see you.”

“You’re a dumbass.”

“Why did you ask?”

“You didn’t have to pull some Dr. Phil shit.”

“Miles, why did you want to know?”

“I’m dead--” Miles frowned, “I’m not alive, I’m not…”

“You shouldn’t think like that.”

“Shut _up_ , I died in Mount Massive. My heart might be beating but I took round after round of bullets and the fact my heart’s beating isn’t _natural_.”

“Nothing about Mount Massive was natural. You’re still you, Miles.”

“I can’t be--”

“You went through some terrible things, but you have to accept that this is the same life you’ve lived all these years, it didn’t end it just... continued.” Waylon sighed a little, almost imperceptibly, “Even if maybe you did technically die, you’re certainly not dead now. You’re alive, Miles.”

It hurt a lot to think about.

When he was younger, it was easier to protect himself from those inner-hurts. Things he told himself to keep himself sane, facades to encase fear, emotional barrier erected to ward off pain -- it was how he managed to do his job and report the honest terrible truths he saw in the world.

Now, those terrible truths lived inside him.

He wasn’t observing anymore, the evil had rooted itself inside him past the walls and personas and mantras and he had no way of protecting himself from the agony it’s nesting caused.

The hope found in living was waning with each hour since trying to rejoin humanity, society, life. It all hurt so bad.

It was a childlike pain.

“We’re almost here.” Waylon spoke into the silence, making another turn past another increasingly populated street.

If Miles hadn’t found Waylon, where would he be? Would he have continued wandering the highways and insert himself into Americana folklore, would he have found his way back to life himself, would he have simply killed himself?

In other words, Miles had to consider just how important Waylon was in his life. He never really thought about it fully, having just met him. It was terrifying to realize how dangerously he was dependent on this stranger.

It’s not like he had a choice.

He couldn’t do this without him. He wasn’t strong enough.

 _Weak?_ Feeling weak for feeling weak because he _was_ weak.

Ignoring the driver’s glare, he tapped out another cigarette and lit it as they entered town. It became apparent it was a tourist destination, as he read signs and posters through his smoke billowing out the window.

“Keep it far outside.” Park glanced at him.

Miles grunted and shifted minutely further out, resting the crook of his armpit over the window’s edge. He ignored the glances of pedestrians as he smoked with his head propped against his shoulder and chin jut out.

Halfway through his cigarette, Waylon pulled the jeep up in front of a laundromat and parked.

“Do you want to come in?”

Miles weighed his choices. On one hand, the prospect of being left alone made him nervous. This was his first time out amongst so many people. On the other hand, he desperately wanted to finish his cigarette. “I’ll wait with the jeep.”

“Make sure no smoke gets inside.” His eyes then searched Miles’ face. He then curved around so he could reach back and dug around for the clothes, including the extra bag he’d thrown in with some of his own dirty laundry.

Miles made sure he heard the sound of the cane being pulled out from behind the seat before he relaxed against the edge of the window.

“I’ll just be a sec.” Waylon informed as he got out, then quickly limped across the sidewalk to step up to the building, door held open by a man exiting. As he passed, the guy gave Miles a friendly nod which he returned.

Paranoia wasn’t a stranger to Miles, it was almost a career skill as a journalist. He hated the way he felt on a busy street though, analyzing everyone who passed, wondering who might be working for Murkoff.

Both of them had gotten lucky. Waylon had told him some stories of working with the Leaks organization and having to move his family across the country, running from black sedans and men with binoculars and sunglasses -- but neither of them had been caught. There’s only been close calls, and none on Miles part. He hadn’t run into a single suspicious person while wandering, as far he knew. Sure plenty of criminally suspicious people, but no one like Murkoff. No one who would work for Murkoff.

He could almost respect the ragged, roughened thieves and scammers he’d encountered (if you could call it that) in the hazy dreams of walking the long wide roads of America, especially in comparison with the silent and corrupt evil of the criminal corporate empire. Some people did evil to survive, others did it purely for greed and control.

It was the powerful and hidden evils that Miles kept a heightened paranoia of. Cigarette to his lips, he eyed all who passed, watching if he was being watched.

In no time, Waylon opened the laundromat doors and approached the jeep.

Miles glanced at him, before taking a final drag of his cigarette and threw it out onto the pavement.

“Want to get some ice cream?” Park asked as he passed Miles’ window.

Miles frowned, blinking, then replied, “What if someone takes our laundry?”

“Then I’ll buy you some new clothes. C’mon, it’s really hot out.”

He hadn’t noticed, but if he thought about it, the late afternoon heat was a little oppressive. Miles found that he hadn’t been very sensitive to temperature, still feeling it but not quite noticing if he didn’t think about it. Like walking barefoot out at night.

Waylon reached for the driver’s door and grimaced as he pulled himself into the vehicle. The man had said his leg wasn’t near as bad as it used to be and didn’t bother him much anymore, but it was clear that the injury still caused him a great deal of discomfort.

As Miles sat, his hand rose to his chest and pressed against the thin fabric of his shirt, feeling the ruined skin beneath.

They pulled out back onto the street, retracing their route through town. Waylon remarked that he’d noticed an ice cream parlour on their way in.

“How do you feel about Bisou staying with us?” They’d came up to the little shop on the corner of the street, turning into the parking lot of a neighbouring souvenir store. “You were pretty nonchalant earlier.”

Miles shrugged, and got out to round the vehicle to help Park out of his seat after they stopped, “Doesn’t matter to me much. It’s not my motel room.”

“But you’re staying here.”

“For a little while.” It was easy to forget they’d settled on a week. The past couple days felt achingly long and eternal but in a way that comfortably felt like the beginning to the rest of his life. Not the freakouts and breakdowns, but the natural companionship that he normally just wasn’t used to, now feeling incredibly right.

_Weak._

_Need independence._

_Need self reliance._

_Weak._

“So you don’t mind a bird hanging around?”

“Try to keep him from shitting on me.” He knew animals didn’t like him much. Dogs barking him as he passed in his slow stuporous wandering of the street, every dog, was a common occurrence in the last half year. He hoped Bisou would take to the Walrider and not be an asshole about it.

They arrived at the parlour, Miles held the door open and then followed Waylon into the shop. It was beautifully chilled inside, and a small man with a large smile looked up from behind the counter.

“Good afternoon.” Park greeted, glancing at the menu. He paused, and looked to Miles, “Do you want to go first?”

“Chocolate.”

The attendant began listing off flavours, “We have chocolate fudge brownie, rocky road, triple chocolate deluxe, chocolate caramel, extreme chocolate--”

“Just like, choc-- y’know, plain old...” He blinked, “Uh, rocky road I guess. In a dish.”

“Would you like a waffle cone dish?”

“Just a normal dish, thanks.” He was actually a little hungry though, just mildly. Eating the waffle cone would probably tide him over. “Or actually, yeah, sure.”

“Would you like chocolate coated, sugared, or fried waffle cone?”

“Uh, no thanks. Plain.”

“Alright, and for you?”

Waylon broke out of the dazed smile he was wearing, and replied, “I’ll have a salted caramel blondie.”

Miles leaned over, “I could dye my hair if you want.”

With a snort and a short choked laugh, Waylon looked away from him and replied to the attendant’s next question, “I’ll have that in a cone, thank you. Just a normal cone.”

“Is that everything?”

Waylon nodded.

Miles glanced at the total on the register and then immediately pretended not to see it, telling himself to forget the number so he could eat his ice cream without guilt.

There was no hesitation when Park handed over the cash, smile not faltering.

Immediately getting to work on preparing the ice creams, the attendant pulled open the heavy glass fridge lid and reached in to begin scooping. Miles revelled in the cold air billowing out.

He felt almost normal. Connected to his body, calm, almost happy. He could feel and it didn't hurt. 

Miles was handed his first, a thin waxy paper cover around the bottom of the large waffle cone dish. There was a strangely thin handled plastic spoon stuck out of the ice cream.

Taking a mouthful, he couldn’t deny it felt good to eat ice cream again.

Park’s eyes were on him as he accepted his own the attendant, thanking him and slowly following Miles to the door.

“It’s good.” Park remarked.

“It’s ice cream.” That wasn’t a diss, Miles meant of course it’s good, it’s ice cream. And he hadn’t had any since long before Mount Massive, so busy and caught up in trying to find work, and of course he hadn’t had any after.

There was something so unique about ice cream. So cold and smooth and strangely soft. It eased some kind of fever Miles hadn’t even known had been burning inside him.

The Arizona heat blasted them as they stepped outside, but Miles didn’t mind it. He had a brief urge to reach for his cigarettes, but the ice cream fulfilled some of the need.

“It’s weird,” Miles muttered, stopping and leaning up against the side of the building, “being around people again. In buildings. In towns.”

“I guess it’ll probably feel very strange for awhile.”

“I don’t really remember the whole half year fully, somehow that makes the disconnection even worse.” He smirked, rubbing his temple. Waylon leaned up beside him.

“Remind me, do you have _any_ memories from that time?”

“Yeah, some. Pretty hazy ones. Like a dream. Like I’ve been sleep walking for half a year and those memories of the highways are the dreams I had before waking up.” It hadn’t been long since that was his life. Only a couple days. He couldn’t imagine living that way anymore.

“You seemed pretty off at the door when I met you, but not like you were sleepwalking. You just acted a little strange. I mean, you s-still do.”

Miles laughed and took a spoonful of his ice cream. Longing for a smoke, he sucked on the spoon a little.

Park snorted and glanced at his dad watch on his wrist, “Laundry should be done in about twenty minutes. Want to find a-a p-park or something?”

Miles shrugged, “You can’t drive with an ice cream.”

“We’ll walk.”

“Can we trust the jeep will be here when we get back?”

“It’ll be fine, and I _don’t_ trust my ice cream will be there when we get to the park if you hold it for me while I drive.” Taking a lick off his dripping cone, Waylon straightened his back and surveyed the area. “I thought I saw a park a few blocks over. Might have been a graveyard though.”

“Same thing.”

“Not really.”

Miles shrugged, following as Waylon set off but stopped and cleared his throat loudly. “Your cane?” They hadn’t grabbed it when they got out this time.

Waylon rolled his eyes and slowly retreated back, headed for the Jeep. He unlocked it and pulled his cane out from behind the seat.

“It’s been doing better, Miles. I just pulled the muscle a little.”

“A pulled muscle would fuck up any leg, dumbass, let alone yours.”

Park frowned and jabbed Miles lightly with the end of his cane.

After locking the jeep again, they leisurely set off down the sidewalk, eating their ice cream in silence. The street was pretty busy but not overly loud, and no one really looked at them so it made it a little easier to adjust to their surroundings.

Miles truly, truly wasn’t used to this yet though.

“You alright?” Park asked halfway down the first street, just as Miles started to feel he was genuinely going to have a panic attack if this kept up. So many eyes and faces. So many living people. People were dangerous, can’t trust -- variants, could be around any corner -- can’t trust--

“I’m fine.”

He’d be lying through his teeth if his teeth were chattering so badly the lie just slipped out between them with ease.

Maybe not as easy as he thought, when Park gave him a stern and strong glare.

“If this is getting to be too much, we can grab the jeep and just drive outside the town and wait somewhere a little more secluded--”

“I’m _fine_ , Park.” He wasn’t fine. His heart was starting to thud so hard his neck ached against the pulse. His ears rang.

There were so many people. He hadn’t been around this many people since… God, it was so much. Sometimes it was all just so much, why did God keep doing this to him?

Where was his mom? Why didn’t his mom ever pay attention to him?

Why was he alone? Why was there so many people?

“Miles.”

Mount Massive was burning. So many people.

“You’re fine.” Waylon spoke, and Miles wasn’t alone.

“I’m fine.” He parroted, staring at the concrete sidewalk passing underneath his feet.

“Breathe, you’re fine.”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to turn back?”

“Thanks for escaping, Park.” Miles interrupted, looking up finally. His hands were still shaking, but his mind had settled a little, was a little less frantic underneath all the fear. Waylon’s voice helped. Miles wasn’t alone. “Escaping, y’know..”

“You said as much earlier.” Waylon was looking at him with concern.

Miles nodded, but didn’t say more. The ice cream in the bowl had become a soup and the waffle cone had grown soggy, spoon now missing. The whole mess shook in his unsteady hand. He watched the ripples in the melted dessert.

They didn’t turn back.

He drifted away for a little bit, returning to himself slowly only as Park murmured, “I think we’re almost there.” as they rounded yet another corner. The treat in his hand was dripping out of the thin wax paper and over his hand, the soggy waffle cone cup disintegrating in the ice cream soup. Waylon was watching the whole affair with a vague fascination and worry.

As his cognitive functions began coming back online, he was faced with a simple decision to focus on to pull himself back to reality: throw out the mess, or sloppily eat it out of his hand.

Maybe it was an easy choice, but in the moment it wasn’t. It was hard to even form a coherent thought yet.

Mindlessly, he licked a glob of ice cream waffle cone off his wrist.

It still tasted divine.

“You’re a mess.” Waylon muttered.

“Yeah.”

A large black open gate came into view, and the previous suspicion had been correct -- what Waylon had thought was a park was in fact a graveyard. It’s headstones were few in number and widely dispersed so it was any easy mistake, Miles supposed.

“Well this is nice.” Miles commented.

“Damn it.”

“Was kinda looking forward to seeing Park in a park.”

“Seeing Park in a graveyard doesn’t have the same appeal, hm?”

Miles shrugged, and continued forward. “Good place as any to eat.”

“We’re not eating in a--”

“What, you never hang out in graveyards with your friends when you were a teen?”

Waylon frowned, following him slowly, “I didn’t really have many friends. And I certainly wouldn’t lurk in a graveyard.”

“They really are just parks for dead people.” Perfect for him.

No, he was alive. _Was he? Bullets, blood, darkness, a cold floor, a humming._ Miles touched his chest where his heart beat and his bullet scars burned.  

The inner conflict lasted only a few seconds.

The two men entered the cemetery, Waylon slightly hesitant, and Miles immediately eyed a bench about halfway down a nearby path through trees and rows of few scattered graves. Waylon followed him and shook his head a little as other continued eating dripping ice cream out of his bare hand. Waylon’s own cone had melted some, but was already more than halfway finished.

Miles glanced at him with ice cream smeared across his chin, and heavily flopped down on the old looking wood bench.

He was feeling calmer, the strange panic had subsided now that they sat in the quiet and isolate cemetery. It was a momentary blow to Miles recovering sense of a living self, that he was more comfortable sitting amongst the dead than walking with the living.

But Waylon was here with him. An irrefutably living person, with a rising and falling chest and healthy flush of pumping blood under his skin -- if he could take any victory, it was that out of all the world he’d found the one person whose presence Miles easily became accustomed to after his months of isolation and detachment from humanity.

Miles mouthed the quickly melting remaining lumps of ice cream left in his hand while purposefully avoiding touching the stump of his finger this time.

Though coming to realize how ridiculous his choice to continue eating it had been, he didn't care much to stop. After all, it was delicious and Miles Upshur had never been one to waste food or care what people thought of him.

“It’s nice here.” Waylon finally said, starting to nibble on the edge of his cone. “I-I wouldn’t have expected a graveyard to be so pleasant.”

Miles smiled a little.

It _was_ nice. Picturesque, with tall ash trees shading the hot arizona sun and well manicured grass dancing lazily in the soft breeze. Almost like out of a movie scene, something indie and not Miles' taste, but -- ‘ _He proposed to me in a park you know. We were sitting on a bench under a few trees, and then he got down on one knee. It was like a scene from a movie, Miles.’_

It’d been a long time since he’d thought of his mother’s voice. A long time since he’d heard it, even in his memories.

He didn’t want to think about this.

“How’d you propose to your wife?” Miles asked suddenly, staring across the graveyard to watch two crows flit about one of the trees.

“I didn’t. She proposed to me.”

Of course.

“So how’d it go down?”

He saw Waylon smile brightly out of the corner of his eye, and turned to face that grin fully. Sometimes it was nice to stare directly at the sun and feel it’s warmth on your face.

“We were at a restaurant. We’d been talking about marriage for awhile, but I didn’t expect a thing because Lisa hates the concept of public proposals.” He shook his head fondly, “Then she says, ‘follow me to the bathroom’.”

“And you assumed ya' were gonna pork?”

“No! No, I actually figured she needed help with her earrings. They’d come out earlier that evening and she always had trouble getting them back in. But when I followed her, as I opened the door she was already inside down on one knee with a ring box.”

“She proposed to you in a bathroom.”

“It was quite romantic.” Waylon beamed, “We’d been having a lovely night, she just wanted us to have some privacy for the proposal. She said she was going to wait until we got home but got too excited and didn’t have the patience.”

“Already, I’ll concede that’s a little sweet.”

“You’d like her. She’d probably flush your cigarettes and certainly wouldn’t put up with as much as your shit as I do, but I think she’d like you too.”

It was rare to hear Park swear. Miles enjoyed it.

They fell into a peaceful silence, the sound being the brief caws of distant crows and the leaves tickling each other overhead in the tree. He could feel the breeze toss his now too long hair slightly, air delicately pushing past him.

Feeling -- feeling was strange, being alive was strange, and being aware was strange. Miles was slowly starting to realize he didn’t entirely mind it.

“Listen, I know you don’t like me saying this...” Waylon finally spoke up, and his tone of voice quickly killed the contentment, “and I know you feel like I shouldn’t or can’t help you, but if you ever want to or need to talk, I’m here. It’s just that Lisa helped me so much just by listening to me and helping me process what I was feeling.”

“I still… don’t really know what makes you think you can be that for me.” He didn’t want to hurt Waylon, he just didn’t understand.

“I learned from her, from how she aided in my admittedly ongoing recovery -- and unlike her, I actually do have a personal understanding from where you're coming from. We both made it out of there alive and I-- I just want to make sure you can enjoy your life as much as you can, now that you’ve gotten it back.” He paused, “I just… felt like I should say that.”

Miles didn’t reply this time, just flicked the last of the last of his melted ice cream onto the grass off his hand and resisted the urge to wipe the remaining onto the borrowed pants he wore. Waylon silently handed him a wad of napkins he’d apparently stashed in his pocket. 

Miles didn’t know what talking meant, in this scenario. What, tell Waylon what happened? Do a play by play? He himself could rarely even think about-- about-- no, maybe just tell him how it made him feel, like some dumb therapist Park was always trying to be? But Miles didn’t know how he felt half the time.

It just wasn’t feasible.

For once, Miles actually wanted to be able to comply with Park’s request, if only to prove to himself and his companion that he could, that he wasn’t weak.

But he was, wasn’t he.


End file.
